


Fall

by Six_Piece_Chicken_McNobody



Series: Flower Town [4]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Child Abuse, Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - C-PTSD, Ensemble Cast, F/M, Gay Nightclubs, Hollow Bastion | Radiant Garden, M/M, Major Character Injury, Other, Panic Attacks, Past Child Abuse, Slice of Life, college town
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-11-09 11:48:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 45,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20852927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Six_Piece_Chicken_McNobody/pseuds/Six_Piece_Chicken_McNobody
Summary: From nightclub employees to art nerds, from single mothers to adopted children, Radiant Garden is a haven. It's a quaint, charming, and perfectly plotted little town in the middle of a chaotic world. But once in a while, the chaos creeps in like an invasive vine, uprooting the order of everyday life.Autumn is a season of change, after all.





	1. Too Slow

**Author's Note:**

> (Just a heads-up: things start to get a little more serious from here on out, as the tags imply. Certain chapters will include content warnings as needed.)
> 
> Part Four, here we go! Thank you to everyone who's still reading this series, and thank you to anyone who's just starting it. I can't believe how much I've already uploaded and how much I still have left to go.
> 
> Characters: Vanitas and Naminé (lol, remember them?)

It occurred to Vanitas, as he led Naminé down the rocky slope, that “taking photos by the riverside” sounded much more appealing than “hanging out under a bridge.” If he had suggested the latter, maybe she wouldn’t have been so inclined to agree. It was a gray, dreary place, especially with the overcast sky and pre-autumn breeze. But Naminé seemed to see its artistic merit as much as he did.

The location had been his idea, but the activity had been hers. As Vanitas set up his photography equipment, Naminé sat on a flat rock by the water, laying her sketchbook on her lap and studying the wide river that ran along the western edge of Radiant Garden. She would sketch the same scene that Vanitas would photograph, and later they would compare and contrast their results. Vanitas wasn’t sure how rewarding an activity it would be, considering she’d have to wait for him to develop the film, but at the very least it was a fun way to spend the morning.

While Naminé outlined her sketch with quiet focus, Vanitas picked his way around the rocks, scouting out the best vantage point. A pair of archravens caught his attention, and he crouched down for a quick shot. He didn’t even have time to line up his camera before they took off, fleeing as soon as he turned the lens on them. “Typical,” he muttered, wondering what was so offensive about him that even the scavenger birds on the outskirts of town couldn’t stand to be in his company.

He ventured to the river’s edge, where the slope was shallower and where he could converse with Naminé more easily. She asked about his current semester and whether he was still taking courses at RGU, which he wasn’t particularly interested in discussing. Fortunately for him, the wind picked up, and Naminé was distracted as she fought a losing battle to keep her hair out of her face. Vanitas bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing as she wrestled her hair over her shoulder.

“A little breezy today, isn’t it?” she said with good humor.

“A little,” Vanitas agreed, transfixed by how quickly she twisted her hair into a braid. “Kinda annoying, but it’s good for photography. Adds movement and makes the shot more dynamic.” Naminé nodded, and when Vanitas noticed her studying the camera, he held it out. “You wanna give it a try?”

“Oh, no,” Naminé said, holding her hand up to keep the offer at bay. “I don’t want to waste your film. I don’t know the first thing about photography.”

“Sure you do. You’ve listened to me ramble about it enough.” She hesitated, and he beckoned for her to join him. “C’mon. If I managed to teach myself, I can teach you, too.”

Naminé rose to her feet, carefully laying her sketchbook down and sliding her pencil into the spiral binding. Vanitas’s camera was easily his most precious and expensive possession, and they were surrounded on all sides by rocks and rushing water. “I don’t want to break it,” she said as she accepted it, cradling its weight in her hands.

“You’re not gonna break it,” Vanitas said, looping the strap over her head. “Just look through here, point, and shoot. Well, focus first—squeeze this button halfway. Turn the lens here to zoom in and out. That’s really all you need to know to get started.”

Naminé’s concern eased away as she peered through the viewfinder. She asked Vanitas about some of the other buttons and dials, but mostly she enjoyed the process of discovery, and Vanitas was happy to stand back and let her figure it out. She even managed to close in on a single archraven as it hopped along the shore, picking at the mossy growth on the stones and allowing her to get closer than Vanitas ever had.

He fiddled with the lens cap, turning it absentmindedly in his hand as he watched Naminé. Even the way she held the camera was amateur, but she made up for it with her earnestness, and the kind of creativity that came with having no prior experience or knowledge of the rules. Vanitas was intrigued by her approach, curious to find out what the end results would look like once he developed the photos.

He didn’t realize how relaxed he had become until the wind picked up again, whisking the lens cap out of his hand without any resistance. It bounced off the rocks only once before landing right in the river. He cursed and darted after it, shedding his sweatshirt immediately, ready to plunge his entire arm into the frigid water to get it back. But the lens was too light to sink where it had fallen, and it bobbed away down the river, already too far to be retrieved. Vanitas followed for a few more steps anyway, hoping that the current might lodge it up against a rock, or a well-placed eddy might trap it just long enough for him to fish it out. But it was already gone, indistinguishable against the inky surface of the water, and Vanitas slowed to a stop, accepting defeat as the fragile disc was carried out to sea.

With a sigh, he turned around and walked back, watching his step this time. He was incredibly lucky not to have fallen; the water and the thin coating of moss had turned the rocks slick and greasy. When he finally made it back to drier surfaces, he looked up and saw Naminé standing there, holding his camera in one hand and his sweatshirt in the other, keeping them both safe from the wet and the cold.

“Well,” he said, like a verbal shrug. “Guess it’s a little windier than I thought.”

“Was that important?”

“Yeah, it was.” He scratched the back of his head. “Do you mind if we stop using the camera for today? A new lens cap is no big deal, but if the lens itself gets damaged, that’s gonna be a pain to fix.”

“Of course,” Naminé said, removing the strap from her neck and handing the camera back to him. Vanitas twisted the lens to retract it, and when he noticed Naminé offering his sweatshirt next, he paused.

“You warm enough?”

“Yes,” she said, too quickly to have actually considered the question. She had no jacket, only jeans and a blouse, and while it wasn’t quite cold out, the breeze skimmed a chill off the river, and the shade from the bridge didn’t help. Vanitas nodded at the sweatshirt, still clutched in her hand.

“You can hang onto that if you want.”

“…are you sure?”

“Yeah, go ahead. You look like you’re about one degree away from shivering.”

She laughed a little, but after brushing a bit of dirt off the sweatshirt, she put it on and zipped it up. She visibly relaxed, gaining instant protection with the extra layer of clothing and Vanitas’s warmth still clinging to the inside. It fit her surprisingly well, slightly baggy but not comically oversized. Naminé pulled her braid out from under the collar and laid it over her shoulder while Vanitas fixed his attention on his camera, readjusting a few of the dials.

With the camera out of commission, they decided to return to town so Vanitas could pick up a new lens cap. The trolley disappeared around the corner right when they reached the street, so they figured they might as well save their munny and walk. As the sun inched out from behind the clouds, Naminé unzipped Vanitas’s sweatshirt and pushed the sleeves up.

The river breeze had left her hair looking stylishly windswept, but Vanitas’s was a catastrophe. When Naminé pointed it out, politely but teasingly, Vanitas roughed his hair up to even out the mess, knowing there wasn’t much else he could do. Naminé laughed, and after a fleeting internal debate, she reached out to him. She was careful not to touch his head, but she pinched a couple of the spikes, shifting them more or less back into place. When she was done, she put her hand back in the pocket of Vanitas’s sweatshirt, blushing but smiling, while Vanitas avoided eye contact like his life depended on it.

They arrived at the street where the marketplace and entertainment district converged, and Vanitas brought his camera inside his usual shop while Naminé waited out on the sidewalk. The sun had come out fully now, and it was almost too warm for the sweatshirt, but she decided to keep it on until Vanitas returned, though she did force the sleeves up a bit higher.

It was quiet for downtown. Most people were still clinging to summer, enjoying these last few days of warm weather before autumn finally kicked in. Naminé wouldn’t be surprised if the crowds had all gone to Twilight Town, to squeeze in as many last-minute beach days as they could. She picked at the corner of her sketchbook and glanced back through the shop window, smiling as she watched Vanitas compare products. He didn’t strike her as a beachgoer, and she still wasn’t a fan of the public gardens, but maybe the fountain courts would be a nice compromise.

As she turned to the empty street again, her mind drifted back to their first meeting—or their second, she supposed. She still had trouble recalling the first time they bumped into each other, though she trusted Vanitas’s account. All she really remembered was hurriedly picking her art supplies up off the ground, feeling the pressure to gather both her things and herself. She’d been so nervous to be outside that day, but here she was now, thinking of asking Vanitas if he’d like to visit the fountain courts after all, or maybe even take advantage of how deserted the town was and spend more time by themselves. She lifted her face to the sun and closed her eyes, feeling a little brave and entirely peaceful, two emotions that she hadn’t realized could coincide.

“Naminé?”

She didn’t open her eyes—they simply opened. She didn’t turn around—her body simply turned. Whatever warmth the sunlight had imparted to her was undone in an instant. Death had spoken her name.

Marluxia regarded her with candid surprise on his handsome face. He cradled a plain brown shopping bag in his arm. His hair was styled as beautifully as ever, and he wore a pale green shirt, neatly ironed and layered with a trim vest.

He looked so normal, and it wasn’t fair. He could hide in plain sight, and Naminé knew now that she would never be able to. All it took was letting her guard down for one day, thinking she could dare to step off her usual streets, the ones she had painstakingly scoped out and added to her network of safe routes around Radiant Garden. And here he was.

“What are you doing here?” Marluxia asked, not as an accusation or a demand, but just a simple inquiry. Fear took root in Naminé’s stomach, bloomed in her chest. She was trapped like a pressed flower, the life squeezed out of her. She felt bloodless.

Rather than answer his question, she said, “How did you find me?”

Marluxia was taken aback. “I haven’t been _looking_ for you, Naminé,” he replied slowly, as if he couldn’t imagine how she had drawn such a conclusion, and Naminé instantly felt her grip on reality slackening. Even worse was the fact that he was probably telling the truth, as this crossing of paths seemed as unexpected to him as it was to her. If it was this easy for him to find her by accident, then with the right people on the job, he could have her entire routine mapped out in twenty-four hours, destroying a year of effort within a single day.

“Well, it’s been a while,” Marluxia went on, as if all that existed between them was the mild awkwardness of not having seen each other recently. “How have you been? What are you up to these days?”

“Good. Not much,” Naminé said, her voice as flat and dry as paper. She didn’t ask anything about him in return. She didn’t want to know, and he would tell her anyway.

“Things are going well back home,” Marluxia said, true to form. “Luxord misses you. It’s been difficult for him to keep things running smoothly without your help. What are you doing for income these days? Do you have a new job?”

Naminé wondered how long she could avoid answering his questions. Sometimes Marluxia was happy enough listening to his own voice, that paradoxical blend of mellifluous and monotone. And sometimes he would simply stare at her until she answered him. She remembered when she was younger, feeling stricken by that stare, which only made it harder for her to stammer out a reply. Anyone else would have eventually stepped in to move the conversation along, either out of pity or to mock her. But Marluxia waited and watched for as long as it took. His eyes were a deep velvet blue that had a way of never catching the light, a starless night sky, uncanny and lacking something vital.

“If you’re struggling at the moment,” he went on, taking note of her disheveled appearance, her looser posture, the lack of rigid poise, “you’re welcome to come back. You know there’s always a place for you with us.”

Naminé’s stomach twisted, curling in on itself like some fleshy, vulnerable creature, desperate for a shell. She drew Vanitas’s sweatshirt tighter around her. “Are you living in Radiant Garden now?”

“Still back and forth, as usual,” Marluxia said conversationally. “But yes, I’m here more often than I used to be. Business is picking up.” Naminé nodded, carefully neutral. “Again, if you’re looking for something to do, or you’re short on cash, we could always use the extra help. You wouldn’t have to go all the way back to Luxord’s if you’re comfortably settled in Radiant Garden, either. There’s plenty of work to be done here in town.”

He framed it as an open offer, but he was clearly waiting for a response—either hoping for Naminé to step back in line, or simply wanting to know how much trouble she would be if she didn’t. The pressure closed in on Naminé, prickling the back of her neck like brambles, until a door opened behind her, breaking the silence with the ring of a storefront bell. For the second time on that street, someone spoke her name.

Marluxia glanced past her, openly confused. Naminé wanted to look at Vanitas, too, but she was afraid of what her look would tell him. She stood still as he approached, and after a brief assessment of Marluxia, Vanitas turned his gaze to her. He didn’t say her name again, or try to get her attention, or ask her what was going on. He studied her, taking in her expression and body language, and then he stood beside her, looking at Marluxia once more.

Marluxia’s poise returned, the confusion disappearing from his eyes without a ripple. “Is this a friend of yours, Naminé?” he asked, as if the idea were completely unheard of, and Naminé realized that was because it was. She’d never had a friend to introduce to him before, and she didn’t know how to do it—or rather, how to avoid it. He was like a fairytale king, an otherworldly deity who behaved in accordance with his own rules and was happy to explain them to you only after you’d broken them. For Marluxia, to know your identity was to own you.

“Vanitas,” he replied for her. Marluxia looked at him for a long moment.

“Nice to meet you,” he finally said without introducing himself in return, and Vanitas didn’t bother asking. He silently sized Marluxia up, a little wary as always but not overly guarded, still trying to figure out what to make of him. Marluxia left him to it, disregarding Vanitas as he turned his attention back on Naminé. “Well, I’m running a little late. It was a nice surprise to see you, Naminé. Maybe you’ll consider getting back to me about the club, or any other work you’d be interested in.”

She could tell he was about to raise his arm, some animal sliver of her brain picking up on the muscle tension before he even moved. He wasn’t going to strike—he never had, and she doubted he ever would—but some form of contact was imminent. Possibly a touch to her shoulder or hair, something familiar, a reclamation.

When he did raise his arm, he was clearly just going for a handshake, but even the most common gestures were laser-focused and predatory coming from him. Naminé had seen it more times than she could remember. Through all the pleasant smiles and soft-spoken greetings, the conferences with board members and the soirees with multi-millionaires, Marluxia had a way of taking a person’s hand as if he wished it were their throat. He had a killing touch and had stolen fragments of Naminé’s life with the most fleeting contact. Fixing her hair before sending her out to the main floor of the casino. Resting his hand on her shoulder for publicity photos. Holding her upper back while they walked, directing her movements like a puppeteer.

Naminé saw that touch closing in, her perception so heightened by fear that she was witnessing events before they occurred. _Stillness is survival_, she recited, forcing herself not to move even when she felt as if her every molecule was shrinking back. _Silence is strength_.

At the sound of a sneaker scuffing the cobblestones, Naminé’s stillness became a full-body flinch, ending in a startled blink. When she refocused, she saw Vanitas’s shoulder in front of her. He couldn’t have taken more than half a step to place himself there, and Naminé realized just how closely he must have been standing to her to begin with.

Marluxia was stymied, his hand barely raised from his side. His disregard for Vanitas was gone. Naminé could feel it, the imaginary target shifting from her to him, or maybe widening its scope to encompass them both.

Either way, she wasn’t alone.

Vanitas tried to hold Marluxia’s gaze, but Marluxia had seen all he needed to see. He nodded at both of them, claiming that it was good to meet Vanitas and telling Naminé he was glad to have seen her again, and then he walked past them, continuing on his way down the sidewalk.

They waited a few moments after he rounded the corner, just in case, but he was gone. When Vanitas finally looked at Naminé again, she was staring beyond everything around her, and all he said, quietly and solemnly, was, “Let’s go.”

Naminé nodded, feeling vacant and yet painfully alert. Walking through the streets of Radiant Garden was now the last thing she wanted to do, but she didn’t have a choice, so she let Vanitas lead her back to her apartment, his sweatshirt wrapped around her like a shroud.


	2. About A Year Ago, Some Things Happened...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Partial flashback chapter (contains examples of emotional/psychological child abuse). Present-day section is a direct follow-up to the previous chapter.  
Characters: Larxene (in the past), Naminé, and Vanitas.

_Larxene flicks the lights on. “Hey. Get up.”_

_Naminé staggers to her feet. She should have learned how to wake up without grogginess by now, but there are no windows or clocks in the casino, even in her room. She has no way of knowing how much sleep she’s gotten without checking her phone, and there’s no time with Larxene breathing down her neck. Naminé brushes her teeth and splashes cold water on her face, and when Larxene reminds her that Marluxia’s waiting, Naminé puts her white dress on and follows her out into the hall._

_She starts to take the route to Marluxia’s office, down a hallway where the casino merges with the hotel, but Larxene leads her to the lobby instead. “He’s on the top floor,” she explains, jabbing the elevator button impatiently. Naminé watches the glass box descend and tries not to visibly gulp. When it touches down, Larxene steps inside, saying, “Chop chop, don’t keep me waiting—it’s rude,” and leaving Naminé with no choice but to follow her in._

_As the elevator whooshes its way up, Naminé tries not to look anywhere but the screen, where the floor numbers slowly increase. The hotel has an extravagantly open design, providing a view all the way down to the lobby from any floor in the building. The elevators are glass-walled, similarly allowing a full look at the hotel no matter what point they’re at in their rise or fall. Naminé can’t go up two stories without her head starting to spin._

_The elevator stalls somewhere past the fourth floor. Naminé’s stomach hollows with the sudden lack of movement, and Larxene is jolted from her bad-tempered musings. “What did you do?”_

_“I didn’t—I don’t know,” Naminé says, just as the lights in the box go out. She isn’t standing anywhere near the console, but Larxene pushes her aside to get to it anyway. Naminé backs into a corner, trying not to look outside the elevator. She reaches behind her and touches her fingertips to the cool walls, like a white moth trapped in a glass._

_Larxene stabs at the buttons, muttering, “Come _on_…” She tries to summon security, but no matter how many times she presses the button, there’s no resultant _ding_ to let them know a signal has been sent. She swears violently in French and gives the entire panel a whack. “Perfect,” she says. “Brilliant. _So_ glad I brought you along for this. You’re just a walking good luck charm, aren’t you?”_

_“I promise, Larxene. I didn’t do anything.”_

_“Oh, well, if you _promise_.”_

_“Really. I don’t know what happened.”_

_“What else is new?” Larxene tries to dig her finger under the control panel cover, her stress palpable as it fills the elevator. Naminé longs for stable ground in more ways than one. In all the years she’s known Larxene, she’s never been able to tell when the spark of her anger will ignite._

_“It’d be one thing if we could get maintenance out here, or open this fucking—_thing_—” Larxene hits the panel with her fist. “I don’t care how high-tech this place is. An elevator mishap is bad news across the board. And if we’re all the way up on level—” Larxene glances at the blank screen automatically, and then, despite her growing worry, rolls her eyes. “Which floor are we on?”_

_Naminé forces herself to look outside, tears pricking the corners of her eyes as the distant hotel lobby swims in her periphery. She fixes her gaze on the exotic flowers that Marluxia has adorned the walls with, non-native species with giant pink and white petals unfurling on the ledges of each floor. They’re distinctly beautiful and make Naminé feel sick, as if they release a toxin in her bloodstream just from being looked at._

_She glances quickly at the sign on the wall and even more quickly away. “Ten.”_

_Larxene’s face goes from impatient to ashen. “_Ten_?” she repeats. “Naminé…I’m not fucking with you right now. If no one gets here soon—I mean, a faulty cable is all it takes for one of these things to drop.”_

_“Larxene—”_

_“Listen. I think we’re close enough to the stop that we can climb out the door, but we need to open it with the emergency release. I’ll lift you up, and you just shimmy out there and pull the lever.”_

_Naminé’s vision blurs. “I can’t.”_

_“Yes, you can. You will.”_

_“I’ll fall.”_

_“We’ll _both_ fall, along with this whole fucking box, if you don’t do it, all right? I’ll give you a boost. Just open the ceiling hatch—see it?—and the lever will be right there. It’s bright red, there are arrows and everything. Even you can’t screw this up.”_

_Naminé’s heartbeat fills her entire body, but she steps forward. Larxene stands under the hatch and holds out her hand, and Naminé, defying every survival instinct she has, reaches out to take it. When Larxene’s ringtone shrills, Naminé skitters back again, her tears finally spilling in sheer surprise._

_Larxene groans and takes her phone out of her pocket, bringing it to her ear. “Go.” She pauses, then sighs. “Yeah, yeah. I’m on it. Give me five.” As she puts the phone away, she digs her fingertip under a corner of the control panel and pops it open with ease. Naminé, still reeling, can’t believe it’s taken her until this moment to realize that Larxene would have been able to call for help the whole time._

_With a twist of the small console key, the lights come back on, informing them that they are, in fact, on the eleventh floor. “Where’d you learn to count?” Larxene asks as she closes the panel. Naminé stares, afraid to feel upset or relieved or even confused, afraid to feel _anything_ until she understands what’s going on._

_“What _is_ this?”_

_“Just a little joke,” Larxene says with a laugh. “Admit it. This one was pretty good.”_

_“A joke?” Naminé repeats, still in shock and hoping she stays that way. Deep down, she knows there’s anger, and deeper down, she knows it’s justified, but the worst thing she could ever do around Larxene is try to defend herself._

_“Man,” Larxene says, grinning delightedly. “I wish I didn’t have to turn off the security cameras for this one to work. Your face was _priceless_. I mean, you were _actually_ going to go outside. You know who fucks around on elevators? Licensed technicians, and people who don’t care if they live or die. And you were gonna go out on the _roof_!”_

_“And you were going to _make_ me,” Naminé almost says, but the elevator moves again, and she has to devote all of her focus on not throwing up. Two stops later, they arrive at her least favorite floor, due to its height as much as its ambiguity. She can never decide whether to call it the thirteenth or fourteenth floor, whether to play along with superstition or tell the truth. She staggers out, relieved to be on a solid surface again as she gets her bearings._

_“Where’s Marluxia?”_

_Larxene snorts. “Not here. That was part of the prank, dummy.”_

_“He’s not here? At all?”_

_“Nope. Out of town, in fact. Off at his club.” Larxene doesn’t sound terribly approving of it, nor with how much time Marluxia has been spending away from the casino, but Naminé is almost brimming with joy._

_“So…he doesn’t need me for anything?”_

_“Yeah, Naminé, he needs you to bring him a glass of water four hours away,” Larxene drawls, her condescension doing little to dampen Naminé’s mood. “No, he doesn’t need you. And I’m heading down to the slots; apparently, the tech in this place really is shit after all.”_

_Naminé is so elated that she’s willing to get right back in the elevator with Larxene, eager to enjoy what might very well be twenty-four hours of free time. She steps forward, and Larxene barricades the door with her arm. “Nuh-uh.” She points down the circular hallway, to the railing. “Over there.”_

_Naminé’s stomach goes cold. Larxene only lets her hesitate for a second before she huffs impatiently and guides Naminé to the railing herself. Like the elevator, it’s made of glass, topped with a shiny golden bar. “Some of our cameras in the lobby are on the fritz, for real,” Larxene explains, helpfully directing Naminé’s gaze straight down. “So until we get them fixed, you’re gonna be our eye in the sky. Congrats on the promotion.”_

_Naminé’s head dips and swims. She knows she’s standing upright, but every second she feels as if she’s about to fall, waiting for the fatal, forward lurch. She’s afraid she might even do it herself, in some irrational, self-destructive compulsion, like the urge to touch a hot stove or jerk the steering wheel on the highway._

_Her body’s survival mechanisms are at war with each other as she holds onto the railing but tries to step away, not sure what she should fear more: the risk of falling or disobeying an order. Larxene puts her hand on the back of Naminé’s head and makes the decision for her, pushing her right up to the glass. Naminé hears her breathing change, unable to look away from the drop now that she’s staring it down._

_“Stay here,” Larxene says quietly, leaning down close to Naminé, “until I come get you. Don’t look away. And smile,” she adds, her voice mockingly bright as she swivels Naminé’s head, disorienting her further. “You’re on camera.”_

_Larxene waves to the security camera and waits for Naminé to do the same before letting her go. She leaves without a backward glance, certain that Naminé will do as she’s told, and as the elevator descends, Naminé braces herself for a long round of the waiting game. She grips the railing, white-knuckled, knowing that the only thing worse than the dread her tormentors instill is the sick gratitude she feels when they finally return._

* * *

Naminé refused to sit down, but she didn’t clean or make tea or do any of the things Vanitas expected her to do to soothe her anxiety. She acted like a caged animal, following a nonsensical but repetitive pattern throughout her apartment as she adjusted the thermostat, moved her sketchbook from the coffee table to the kitchen counter, opened a cabinet to make sure everything was in order, and adjusted the thermostat back to where it had been before.

Vanitas let her engage in these rituals without comment, but after a few minutes of watching her from the couch, he said her name, shifting closer to the armrest to make room. She joined him with mild hesitation, folding her hands neatly on her lap, one over the other. Vanitas wasn’t sure what to say, but in this state, he realized that waiting for Naminé to take the lead might not be the most prudent approach.

“Who was that guy?” he finally asked, figuring he might as well cut to the quick.

Naminé took a deep, silent breath, let it out, and then took another when she remembered how good it felt to breathe properly. Vanitas saw her steel herself, but when she spoke, her voice was quiet and calm. She told him who Marluxia was. She explained how he co-owned a casino and hotel several hours away, how he had adopted her when she was a little girl, and how he raised her and gave her work until about a year ago, when she was old enough to leave his care.

Nothing about her explanation was all that strange on the surface, but a few words in particular stood out to Vanitas. “Raised.” “Gave.” “Care.” The notes were right, but the tune was off. And while Naminé’s voice was steady, her shoulders still trembled every few minutes or so.

“What brought him to Radiant Garden?”

“He has his own business here, separate from the casino,” Naminé replied, not looking at Vanitas but not avoiding eye contact, either, gazing across the room.

“Right. He mentioned a club?”

He kept his tone casual, but Naminé was on high alert, despite her faraway stare. “Why?” she asked immediately. Vanitas picked at a hangnail.

“Just asking.”

“Don’t go looking for him.” Vanitas glanced at Naminé and saw that she was looking him dead in the eye now. He nodded, dismissing the idea, but Naminé continued to stare him down. “I mean it. Just leave it alone.”

Vanitas stared back. Her gaze was intense, her nervousness overpowered by the importance of what she was telling him. He nodded again, more deliberately this time, and they both went back to not quite looking at each other and not quite talking about it. When Vanitas eventually said that it was time for him to go, Naminé seemed as disappointed as she did relieved.

He rose from the couch and lingered in the middle of the room, looking down at his camera as he rolled one of the dials back and forth pointlessly. “Are you gonna be all right?”

Naminé assured him that she would. She said that she hadn’t seen Marluxia in a while and hadn’t expected to bump into him that afternoon. She was just a little taken by surprise—that was all.

Vanitas still saw visceral dread beneath her veneer of poise and politeness. She didn’t seem taken by surprise as much as caught off guard. But she was back in her own home and didn’t look like she had any plans to leave it for the rest of the day, and Vanitas had to return to his grandfather’s house before dinner. With an unconvinced and reluctant nod, he left.

As soon as he was gone, Naminé both relaxed and became even more jittery. She put the kettle on and tidied up while the water boiled. However much she berated herself for letting her apartment fall into constant disarray, at least it gave her a way to keep busy. She wiped down the kitchen counter and watered her plants and organized her art supplies, and when the kettle whistled, she brought a cup of tea and her sketchbook to the couch and curled up halfway under a blanket. Despite the occasional tremor still jangling her nerves and her limbs, she felt a surprising lack of cold.

It took her nearly an hour after Vanitas left to notice that she was still wearing his sweatshirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PSA: Seriously, don't mess around with elevators.


	3. It's Hard To Let It Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flashback chapter, covering the weeks after Isa moves in with Lea and his mom. Also deals with topics like nocturnal panic attacks and the lingering effects of childhood abuse and trauma—you know, typical teenage stuff.  
Characters: Isa, Lea, and Lea's mom.

Isa was awake faster than he’d ever been in his life. Consciousness solidified around him like a sarcophagus, trapping him where he lay. He’d heard a crash—possibly a bang—like something knocked over in the yard or slamming against the front door.

He strained his ears. There was no other sound, but after a racket like that, of course there wouldn’t be.

Tension gripped him at the base of his skull, locking up his spine, but he forced himself to get out of bed. With his phone in hand, he crept through the house, trying to figure out which direction the noise had come from. It was so loud and had felt so close, as if it had come from inside his own head. He inspected the first floor, looking through the windows into the deep November darkness. There was nothing out there but stillness and quiet.

As his brain slowed down and his body woke up, the two of them meeting somewhere in the middle, Isa realized that this was a perfectly ordinary nighttime silence, not the held breath after a scare. It was almost one o’ clock now. There had been no follow-up to the initial sound, and as Isa stood barefoot in the tiled kitchen, he started to consider the possibility that it really _had _originated in his own head.

He supposed that was better than the alternative, but it was a cold comfort.

He returned to bed, bundling himself under the covers. After about fifteen minutes, his feet were still freezing, and he was still too wired to sleep. An irregular swooping sensation in his head kept him from being able to drift off, and his body was braced for an attack that he now realized wasn’t going to come. A glance at the clock told him that it was nearly three in the morning, and that he had been lying in bed for two hours rather than the fifteen minutes he’d assumed. With a defeated sigh, he gave up on trying to rationalize himself back to sleep, wrapped a blanket around his shoulders, and crossed the hallway to Lea’s room.

Lea slept with his door open, which baffled Isa but saved him the trouble of knocking. As he approached and saw how peacefully Lea was sleeping, Isa knew he must have imagined the sound after all. It had felt so real when he was on high alert, but now he couldn’t even remember what kind of noise it had been.

Isa stood by the bed and said Lea’s name, his voice barely above a whisper, as if he were trying to not quite wake him up. He said it again, nudging Lea’s shoulder this time.

Lea awoke quickly, but not suddenly, rubbing his eyes before he looked around to see what had stirred him. “Hey,” he greeted Isa, sitting up and blinking away the sleep. “What’s up?”

Isa knew how crazy he must have been acting—probably about as crazy as he felt. He sat down and wrapped his arms around Lea, enveloping both of them in the blanket. Lea hugged him back, sounding a little more awake and a little more concerned as he said, “What is it? Are you okay?”

Isa didn’t respond right away, just long enough for Lea to worry that the answer was no. But eventually he nodded, using the motion to bury his face in Lea’s shoulder, drawing the blanket tighter around them. Lea rubbed his back, still confused, but not needing an explanation to know what to do next. He moved over and let Isa take his spot, which was both warmer and put him further from the door, guarded by the wall on one side and Lea on the other.

Isa settled in while Lea lay down beside him, draping an arm over Isa’s waist to keep him close. He was out in mere minutes, as if his sleep hadn’t been interrupted at all. Isa had no idea how he managed that, but as he moved closer, playing with Lea’s hair a bit to soothe himself, he closed his eyes and finally drifted off again.

Lea let him sleep in the next morning, a considerate gesture that turned awkward when Isa left his room at the same time that Ms. Quinlan was walking down the hallway. She paused for a moment before greeting him with a neutral, “G’morning,” which he barely mumbled back to her. She continued on her way, not planning to bring it up at all, but Isa was off-kilter well into the afternoon, unable to even make eye contact with her. Finally, she caught him in the kitchen and asked if something was bothering him. Isa pressed his fingertips against his plate, picking up the crumbs only to brush them off his hands again as he worked up his nerve.

“I just…I’m sorry about this morning, if it was awkward,” he said haltingly, still focused on his plate. “It won’t—it was a one-time thing. Last night, I just wasn’t…”

He didn’t even know _what_ he wasn’t last night, or how to stammer through an apology which, according to Ms. Quinlan’s expression, didn’t need to be given. “Isa, look,” she began, gently but matter-of-factly. “We’re all adults here, if you can believe it. I mean, you’re still kids to me,” she added when Isa shook his head to say no, he couldn’t believe it. “And we don’t have to talk about this at all if you don’t want to. But, y’know…I understand what this living situation entails. You’re not doing anything wrong, all right? All I ask is that you two, like…try to be discreet,” she finished, tact eluding her. They’d had plenty of heartwarming and revelatory conversations in the week since Isa started living at her house; they were probably due for a stumbling and graceless one.

Isa wanted to assure her that nothing even happened last night, but they had already discussed it well beyond his comfort level. He nodded, trying to take her at her word, and she gave his shoulder a little squeeze before going upstairs, leaving him to ruminate on their brutally embarrassing conversation as he finished his lunch.

* * *

Isa felt like he and Lea had always done things in an odd order. It had taken them two years of making out on a regular and exclusive basis to realize that they were in a relationship. It had taken them a year of sleeping together to finally say they loved each other.

And even after his unambiguously adult discussion with Ms. Quinlan, Isa was still thrown off by basic, everyday displays of affection. One morning, during his first week at their house, he went downstairs to find Lea and his mom already having breakfast. Ms. Quinlan greeted him and started pointing out breakfast options while Lea finished eating and rose from his chair, pausing to give Isa a brief good morning kiss as he brought his dishes to the sink.

Isa hadn’t flinched from a fist, but he flinched from a kiss. It didn’t matter how supportive and accepting Ms. Quinlan had proved herself to be; nothing could have prepared Isa for being kissed in front of another person for the first time—besides Demyx, anyway.

Ms. Quinlan continued to talk, placing no emphasis on what just occurred in her kitchen. It took Isa a few tries to get his English muffin into the toaster, and he was buzzing from that fleeting kiss well into the afternoon.

Overall, living with the Quinlans was a smoother transition than Isa expected. He still held onto some of his old habits and mannerisms from living with his father, but he was quick to replace them with new ones, taking more steps forward with each passing day.

The step back, however, was that—aside from the usual hug or kiss—Lea refused to touch him. It was as if they were in their early teens again, anxious and unsure and still discovering just about everything, and it gave Isa a feeling that was hard to reconcile. He ate meals with this family and talked to them every day, but Lea’s avoidance made him feel spectral, like some entity haunting a house he was supposed to be living in. Isa had survived for years on a lack of touch, but the sudden loss of it was chipping him away, bit by bit.

At first, he assumed part of the blame fell to him. In the past, Isa had always gone home at the end of the night. Now, he _was_ home. They’d never slept together and gone on living in the same space, and Isa wasn’t sure if he was ready for that.

It took him a little over a week to decide that yes, he absolutely _was_ ready for that. One evening, when Ms. Quinlan was working a late shift, he and Lea decided to have a movie night. They had the house entirely to themselves, but while Lea let Isa sit close to him and rested an arm around his shoulders, that was where his initiative ended.

Eventually, Isa grew tired of hint-dropping, especially when Lea was choosing to be difficult and evasive instead of giving him an outright “no.” After subtly and gently trying to make contact and being subtly and gently diverted, Isa impulsively took Lea’s head in both hands, turning it toward him. “Lea,” he said, inches away from his boyfriend’s surprised face, “_touch _me.”

The direct approach was effective, but by the time they actually started to get anywhere, they heard a set of keys turning in the front door. They managed to right themselves before Ms. Quinlan stepped inside, though they sat conspicuously still, watching the TV with far more focus than was warranted by _Phone Booth_. Ms. Quinlan paused in the doorway, taking in the sight of them, and then said, “Hi,” with what she hoped wasn’t too much of a beleaguered sigh. She went to the kitchen while Isa and Lea pretended to be engrossed in the film, and even after she went to bed, Lea wouldn’t so much as put his arm around Isa for the rest of the night.

By the time Lea was willing to accept another one of Isa’s advances, it had been almost two weeks. They had spent the evening at their last school presentation before winter break. Neither Lea nor Isa had anything noteworthy to present, but they, like ninety percent of the student body, were forced to dress semi-formally and listen as their more accomplished peers wowed their families and bored the rest of the audience with musical performances and academic essays and speeches. Even Ms. Quinlan complained about how unnecessary it was as she drove the boys home. She dropped them off in the driveway and left for work, and Isa and Lea made their way to the house through the December air—technically freezing, but too windless and quiet to have much bite.

Lea knew what was coming as soon as they got inside. He had barely begun to shut the door when Isa helped him close it the rest of the way, all but shoving him against it. Lea winced into the kiss, and he jumped when Isa ran his frigid fingers through his hair. He held Lea to the door, trying to press through layers of winter clothing while Lea searched blindly for the doorknob. He finally told Isa to wait and turned away to secure both locks, fumbling with them the harder he tried to focus.

As soon as he heard the slide of the deadbolt, he turned to Isa again, hands raised to frame his face. Isa kept some distance between them this time to wrench the buttons of Lea’s coat free, and Lea, who had spent the past few weeks simply trying to do the right thing and be mindful of boundaries, wondered as Isa tore the coat off him if he should try holding out more often.

He let Isa go from pushing him against the door to pulling him by the front of his shirt, dragging Lea to his own room. Lea hit the light switch automatically only for Isa to reach past him and turn it back off, spiking the mood by a hundred percent. Lea kissed Isa with new fervor, though after a few seconds of trying to cross the room, make out, and remove Isa’s coat in the dark, he managed to pull away just enough to whisper, “I need _something_, Isa; I’m gonna trip.”

Isa reached out, twisting the knob on the dim nightstand lamp behind him. He was back on Lea immediately, untucking his shirt and trying to undo it as quickly as he’d managed the coat. It was slow going, as the buttons were smaller, more numerous, and slippery, and Isa’s hands were shaking. Lea, desperate to just get into bed with him at this point, helped speed up the process by unbuckling his belt and getting it out of the way in a quick, dry slide of leather on fabric.

Isa went from breathing audibly between kisses to not breathing at all, from having both hands on Lea to letting go of him entirely. He backed up so fast he hit the nightstand, grasping for the lamp before it toppled over.

Lea froze, staring at Isa and trying to process how quickly that just happened. Isa stared back, but he was looking beyond Lea, somewhere else, back in time. As Lea studied his wary posture and remembered the belt still hanging in his hand, it started to sink in, and the moment his eyes held a glimmer of comprehension, Isa snapped back to the present. “Sorry,” he said quietly, and even more quietly, Lea replied, “Isa, _stop_.”

Isa took a deep breath, trying to relax but physically unable to do so, just as Lea was unable to get his head around what he was seeing. Finally, he said, “Did that mean what I think it meant?”

“…probably. Yeah.”

Lea nodded in an unnaturally deliberate way, the revelation sinking in all at once, faster than he could handle it. He laid the belt on the floor and held his hand out to Isa, who slowly stepped forward and let Lea wrap his arms around him. Lea tried to rub his back, but he kept stopping mid-gesture. All he managed to say was, “When?”

Isa shrugged. “I dunno. A long time ago.”

“…how long ago?” Isa must have heard how his attempt to brush it off only made it sound worse, because he hesitated before answering this time.

“A long time ago,” he repeated. “Before I met you.”

“…we met in third grade.” Isa shrugged again, and Lea felt his body temperature drop. “I asked you if he hit you. You told me he didn’t.”

“He didn’t. He only used a belt one time—that’s just how parents disciplined their kids when he was my age. It’s not like he made a habit of it. At worst, he’d like, give me a little smack upside the head every now and then.”

“Isa,” Lea said carefully, “that’s still hitting. I mean, I’m trying to picture Ma doing that to me, and it doesn’t even _work_. I literally can’t even imagine it.”

“It just didn’t seem like a big deal. He only did it one time.”

“You think maybe that’s _why_ he only did it one time? So it _wouldn’t_ seem like a big deal?” Isa remained quiet, officially out of responses there.

Lea, predictably, refused to go through with their initial plan for the evening, but he also refused to let Isa out of his sight or out of his grasp. They finished undressing, changing into pajamas and climbing into Lea’s bed at his insistence. “I think we’re doing this too often,” Isa said as he nevertheless settled in, letting Lea cradle him in one arm.

“I don’t think we do this often enough,” Lea replied. He lay down beside Isa but stayed a little above him, kissing the top of his head. Isa tried to relax and let Lea dote on him for the rest of the night, accepting that while this wasn’t the kind of attention he’d been seeking, maybe this was something he needed, too.

* * *

A week after what Isa started mentally referring to as the belt incident—realizing now how strange it was that he’d never referred to the actual incident that way—Lea was more difficult to reach than ever. He refused to initiate anything with Isa, and there was a pall over what minimal contact they did share. His hugs were more lingering, as if he were trying to shield Isa with every embrace, and his kisses were more deliberate, as if he were trying to communicate something vital. His heart was in the right place, but it left Isa feeling like something critical was at stake with even the most fleeting and ordinary touch.

Finally, Isa accepted that he would once again need to be direct and not give Lea the opportunity to sidestep or evade. He wasn’t even particularly in the mood, but the weeks of not being with Lea had worn him down, and he figured the sooner they fixed this problem, the better. He knocked on Lea’s door and asked him point blank, forcing him to give a clear yes or no.

They went to Isa’s room this time. It was only midday, and they had the house to themselves until later that evening. There was plenty of time, and Isa intended to use it, sensing that Lea might benefit from taking things slower than usual. But when Lea stalled only a few minutes in, after removing both of their shirts and then refusing to go any further, Isa’s patience started to run thin.

Lea was going in circles, still evading even as they lay in bed together. At first Isa let it slide, assuming that Lea was trying to build some tension and get into his rhythm. He eventually resorted to guiding Lea’s hands, but as soon as he let go, Lea brought them back to Isa’s chest or face or hair or wherever he seemed to think the best place for them was. It was admittedly very relaxing, but the last thing Isa wanted right now was to be relaxed.

On what felt like the hundredth time Lea bent down to kiss him, Isa sat up without warning. There was a brief clash of chins and teeth and foreheads, and Lea jerked back in surprise while Isa propped himself up on his elbows. “All right,” he said challengingly. “What.”

“What?” Lea replied, a little more nasally than usual as he rubbed his nose.

“What?”

“_What_?” Lea asked again, and then put his hands up. “Okay. Obviously this conversation’s going nowhere.”

“_You’re_ going nowhere. Do you have amnesia or something? Do you need me to hold your hand and walk you through this?”

“_No_,” Lea said, his eyes burning, and while Isa didn’t like putting him on the defensive, this at least was a Lea he could work with.

“Then what gives? I didn’t drag you in here. If you don’t want to do this, then just say so, because this is bullshit.” Lea looked off to the side, and Isa, backing off a little, said, “What’s the problem, Lea?”

Lea didn’t answer, and Isa wondered if after all this time, even he wasn’t sure why he was keeping his distance anymore. Just as Isa was about to repeat himself, Lea said, “Aren’t you scared?”

Isa blinked, feeling like he’d never understood a question less in his entire life. “_No_,” he said, incredulous. “What would I be scared of? We’ve done this a million times.”

Something clicked when Isa said it out loud. He took in the sight of Lea sitting there, cross-legged, gripping his ankles, completely attuned to Isa but refusing to look at him. All of Isa’s annoyance melted away as he quietly said, “Lea…are _you_ scared?”

It took Lea a moment to meet Isa’s gaze, but when he did, he nodded silently, and Isa felt his heart break. He shifted his weight to one arm so he could reach up, holding Lea’s face and running his thumb over his cheek. “Why?”

Lea looked across the room again, unable to go further right now but unwilling to address whatever was holding him back, trying to linger in this suboptimal but relatively safe in-between state. “Lea, _what_?”

Lea took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and Isa forced himself to be patient as Lea both gathered his thoughts and worked up his nerve to share them. “I don’t want you to be scared.”

“I _just_ said I’m not.”

“I _know_,” Lea said, not quite snapping, but close. He glared at nothing in particular, frustrated at not being able to express himself more clearly. “I dunno. I don’t want to upset you.” Isa still looked confused, and Lea, almost pleading to be understood, said, “I don’t want to _hurt_ you, Isa.”

Isa paused, letting his thumb rest on the crest of Lea’s cheek. He recalled the first night he spent here, lying in Lea’s bed after leaving his father’s house. Even at the time, he’d known that he was pushing them too far, skirting too close to the edge of what Lea was comfortable with. But he’d been craving contact, seeking it out with desperate energy, like searching for water in the throes of a fever. Touch had placated him and soothed his nerves, even after being struck only hours earlier.

But he also remembered Lea trying to reciprocate and accidentally putting pressure on the bruise. He remembered the way Lea had berated himself for it, how guilty he’d looked, how careful and mindful he’d been afterward. Almost every touch since then had been weighed in advance, hardly any of them impulsive or spontaneous.

Isa ran his thumb over Lea’s cheek again, and Lea held still for a moment before leaning into his hand, kissing his palm, putting his own hand over Isa’s to keep it against his face. “That was a while ago now,” Isa said. “There’s not even a bruise anymore. I’m fine.” Lea looked unsure, even saddened by what Isa was saying. Isa took both of their hands off Lea’s face and guided them to his own, making Lea apply pressure to his jaw. “See?”

Lea smiled faintly and brushed his thumb over Isa’s cheek like Isa had done to him, straying to the corner of his lips before working his fingertips up into Isa’s hair. Isa let his eyes shut, and when he opened them, Lea was gazing down at the contented expression on his face, looking as torn as before. “Lea,” Isa said again, more tired than anything else. “What?”

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” he repeated. “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to. _I _don’t want to do anything you don’t want.” Isa looked at him, sympathetic but still not quite understanding, and Lea quietly added, “I just want you to feel safe.”

Isa waited for an explanation, but that was apparently it, so with a sigh, he finally sat all the way up. Lea looked down again, knowing what that meant: that Isa had officially given up on getting the mood back and it was all his fault. But Isa reached behind Lea, running his fingertips up the nape of his neck and into his hair. He leaned in, touching their foreheads together, and while Lea looked like he just wanted to close his eyes and enjoy it, he was still preoccupied with his thoughts, not letting himself indulge. _God_, Isa thought as he studied Lea’s face. _That’s what I look like all the time, isn’t it_?

But he kept combing his fingers through Lea’s hair, and when Lea’s eyes finally shut, Isa wrapped his other arm around his shoulders. Lea hugged him immediately, lowering his head, and Isa simply held him, still scratching his fingernails gently along his scalp. He thought about how Lea was the one who had always tracked him down when they were kids, no matter where he’d hidden himself, no matter how long it took. How Lea was the one who picked up on and adjusted to Isa’s moods, even when he didn’t understand them. The one who had given Isa his first kiss and taken him to the most secluded spot they could find to do it. Lea was the one who held Isa when he cried and the one who always stood between Isa and his bullies, whether that meant fighting them on the schoolyard or looking them in the eye and telling them to go to hell.

Isa kissed Lea’s cheek and murmured, “I have never felt safer than when I’m with you.” He felt Lea’s hold on him tighten, but after a few seconds Isa pushed him away again so he could look Lea in the eye. “I know you want to change what happened, but you can’t go back in time and fix it. Honestly,” he said, the thought coming to him with startling clarity and simplicity now that he was speaking it aloud, “even if we could change it, it wouldn’t be worth having to go back. We’re here now. And the way you’ve been treating me…I get it. I do. But it’s making me feel like I’m in a coffin.”

Lea looked down again, nodding like he’d been scolded. Isa slid his fingers under his chin and tipped it back up, ducking his own head to meet him halfway. “I’m here, and I’m alive,” he said, “and you’re not going to hurt me.”

Lea’s green eyes shone. “What if I do?”

“Then you do. And I’ll tell you. Have I _ever_ had a problem letting you know when you screw up?”

Lea smiled weakly, still a little unsure, and Isa sat back, bringing his hands down again. “So…” he said, not knowing what else to say. “The best laid plans, huh?”

Lea laughed awkwardly, scratching the side of his head. “Yeah…kind of a mood-killer. Sorry about that. Again.” He dropped his hand back to his lap. “We can just go downstairs or something if you want. I mean…I’d still be up for it, if you—”

Isa was on him in an instant, drawing a kiss out of Lea in spite of his surprise. Lea sat up straight for exactly one second, then melted, so relaxed that he lacked the tension needed to raise his arms and wrap them around Isa. He took a deep breath through his nose and managed to lift his hands, raking them slowly through Isa’s hair, pushing it away from both of their faces.

As eager as Isa was, he made himself go slow. He repeatedly broke away only to kiss Lea again, leaning back a little further each time and making sure Lea came with him as he lay down. When Lea pulled away, Isa almost lost it then and there, not about to suffer through his stop-and-go pattern all over again.

But Lea stayed close, his face a few inches above Isa’s and his breathing already heavy. He was clearly ready to keep going, and he paused only to ask, “Are you sure?”

Isa had spent the entire trip back down to the mattress trying to figure out the right way to put Lea’s mind at ease. But they’d done enough overthinking for one afternoon, and he decided to go with whatever words of reassurance ended up coming out of his mouth. “I want you,” he said, holding Lea’s face and looking him steadily in the eye, “to fucking wreck me.”

Those words hung in the small space between them as Lea’s eyes flickered back and forth between Isa’s. They leaned in at the same time, Isa not just holding Lea’s face but grabbing it, biting his lip briefly. Lea managed to pull away and bury his face in Isa’s neck instead, laying his mouth on it until Isa’s hair stuck to his skin. Isa wrapped both arms around Lea, holding him down as much as he was being held down himself, barely releasing him even when Lea finally tried to reach between them to undo Isa’s jeans.

It was the first time they’d had sex since Isa moved in, which meant it was also the first time they’d had sex since they said they loved each other. While Isa was too focused to say much of anything, Lea couldn’t stop once he started, pressing his face to the side of Isa’s head and repeating it over and over again.

Afterward, Isa tried reaching out to Lea, who all but swatted his hand away, saying, “Seriously, don’t. I think I’m having straight-up sensory overload right now.” Isa settled for playing with his hair, which Lea always seemed able to tolerate. Finally, when he had cooled off a little, Lea scooted closer, and Isa immediately wrapped his arms around him. They fidgeted for a few seconds as Lea tried to lay his head on Isa’s chest and Isa tried not to get poked in the eye with Lea’s hair, but soon they settled in, and Isa slowly ran his fingertips up and down Lea’s back.

They lay there quietly, listening only to each other’s breathing and, in Lea’s case, Isa’s heartbeat. “Are you all right?” Lea asked, and Isa, too relaxed to be annoyed, sighed gently and said, “I’m all right.” A moment later, he rested his hand on Lea’s side and asked, “Are _you_ all right?”

Lea laughed. “Uh, yeah. I mean, I’m gonna wait till I get the feeling back in my legs before I give you a definite on that.”

Isa nosed into his hair, feeling content and absurdly affectionate. “You’re not gonna make me wait another month for this, are you?”

“I’m not gonna make you wait another _day_,” Lea mumbled through a yawn, hilariously unconvincing. He looked ready for a nap, the physical exertion and the emotional toll of the past month catching up with him, and Isa figured he might as well take one, too. It was still only mid-afternoon, and they had hours before they needed to get up. And Isa realized, with a surprising wave of happiness, that this would be the first time they’d slept together and been able to follow it up with _literally_ sleeping together.

He got more comfortable, and Lea took him up on that unspoken offer, nuzzling into Isa’s neck and whispering again that he loved him. Isa brought his hands under the covers to pull Lea closer and steal some of his warmth, and he whispered back, “Love you, too.” He kissed the top of Lea’s head, lingering as he closed his eyes, and the double dose of sunlight that reflected off the snow outside did little to keep him from drifting into a calm and dreamless sleep.


	4. Proof Of Existence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters: Vanitas and Xehanort.  
And even more instances of child abuse. These kids are not okay.

The safelight doused Vanitas’s bathroom in soft, dim red, an effect he found both creepy and soothing. He knelt on the floor beside his chemical trays, developing photos one by one before giving them a rinse and clipping them to the clothesline strung above his bathtub. He’d spent countless evenings doing this in the past—to varying levels of success—and he could happily spend countless more the same way. No matter how much time he devoted to a shot, deliberating over every angle, every zoom, every bit of composition and lighting, the end result always surprised him. When he dipped the paper in the trays and watched the image take form before his eyes, dissolving in reverse, it was like remembering a dream.

Even better than rediscovering his own work was having the opportunity to view Naminé’s for the first time. He smiled at the image of an archraven hopping across river rocks. The lighting was flat, even for an overcast day, but Naminé had a natural eye for composition, no doubt from all her experience with sketching and painting. He pinned the picture up among his own, satisfied that at least one person could nab a shot of the elusive birds.

He pinched the next blank sheet in his tongs, realizing that this was the first photo where he had no idea what to expect. It took a while for the image to form, and a while longer for Vanitas to recognize that what he was looking at was a picture of himself. Naminé must have taken it when he was staring out at the river instead of at her. It had all the hallmarks of a candid shot: slightly unfocused, mostly centered, nothing particularly insightful or revelatory about the subject matter. It was just him, standing there in his sweatshirt, lens cap in hand. His face wasn’t even visible. And yet, something had made her want to capture that moment and turn it into a memory.

Of all the surprising things about the photo, what surprised Vanitas the most was how unfazed he felt by Naminé turning the lens back on him. Usually, he was loath to be caught on film, but the longer Vanitas studied this particular photo, the more things he found to like about it.

He was just adding it to the clothesline when he heard a pair of boots striding down the hallway. He paused beside the taut string bristling with photos, waiting for the footsteps to decide which direction they would go next.

His direction, of course. And why wouldn’t they? Vanitas had his own bathroom—his own _wing_, even—but if Xehanort wanted to talk to his grandson, then by god, he was going to talk to his grandson. As long as he was in the house, anyway. However much the old man enjoyed breathing down his neck, Xehanort was nearly oblivious to Vanitas once he left the property. Vanitas zipped his remaining film in a light-proof bag and stashed it in the far corner of a cabinet, shaking his head. His grandfather was an illustrious professor at one of the most prestigious universities in the country, and he had the object permanence skills of a toddler.

Xehanort knocked on the door, and Vanitas stayed right where he was. “Read the sign,” he said as he laid the next sheet in the developing tray. “I’ve got photos going in here.”

“Yes, and _thank_ you for making the hallway reek of vinegar. Now open up. We need to discuss your schedule.” Vanitas gave the door a perplexed look.

“Can this wait till tomorrow?”

“No, it cannot. You only signed up for one college-level course this semester; you should be taking at least two.”

“_Why_?” Vanitas asked, unable to hold back an incredulous laugh. “I’m seventeen. Whatever happened to high school?”

“You’ll be eighteen in a couple short months. The hourglass is running out.”

“Are you seriously _that_ pissed off that I’m not taking chemistry this semester?” Vanitas asked, wondering why his grandfather couldn’t at least reprimand him with a relatively normal phrase like “the clock is ticking.” Apparently even his idioms were as archaic as he was.

“It’s more than that, Vanitas, and you know it. You are a member of this family—god only knows _how_—” Vanitas rolled his eyes. “—and it’s beyond time for you to get your act together. Your father was taking two college classes per semester when he was your age.”

“Lot of good that did him.”

“I’ll be the first to point out the blemishes in our lineage, thank you very much. Was it you or was it me who sank countless dollars and hours into that man’s life, only for him to throw it all away and run off with some desert girl?”

“I dunno. Was it you or me who had to live with the fallout?”

“Everything is _such_ a struggle for you, isn’t it? How ever do you manage?”

“Beats me.”

“You ought to be the latest in a long line of early graduates from this university. The way you’re headed, it seems like your only goal in life is to singlehandedly uproot your family tree.”

“You’re joking, right?” Vanitas said as he dipped Naminé’s next photo in the shallow pool of acetic acid. “Our family tree is a fucking cactus.”

“Oh, how _clever_ you are,” Xehanort droned, finally popping the lock and opening the door to speak to Vanitas directly. “No one’s stopping you from leaving, if you’re feeling so homesick for that barren wasteland. Franky, it would be a weight off my shoulders. But while you’re living under my roof, you will heed my rules, not dally in time-wasting little hobbies. We’ve spent generations cultivating a reputation at this school, and if you’re not even going to _try_ to live up to—”

Vanitas calmly leaned against the door, shutting it on his grandfather’s half-finished diatribe. He felt the instant gratification of petty revenge, and he shook excess fluid off the photo in his hands, which had looked like a promising shot of the river but was already ruined by the exposure to light.

He knew better than to think that Xehanort wouldn’t simply reenter the room, but he didn’t expect him to do it so quickly or roughly. The door knocked Vanitas aside, and he dropped the photo as he tried to steady his fall, reaching straight into the stop bath. With a hiss, he withdrew his hand and plunged it into the rinse water instead, trying to soak the chemicals off before they seeped into his hangnail. “What the _hell_ is your problem?”

Xehanort was all too happy to explain that Vanitas himself was his problem as he hauled his grandson up by the back of his sweatshirt. Vanitas stumbled sideways as Xehanort dragged him out of the bathroom, ranting every step of the way about disrespect and corporal punishment and “_your_ generation” and “back in _my_ day.”

Vanitas barked at Xehanort to let him go, twisting like a snake until the old man dismissed him with a shove, as if he weren’t worth the effort of holding onto. Vanitas yanked his shirt back into place as he stalked down the hall, ready to bolt when he noticed his grandfather trailing after him. But Xehanort only followed for a few steps, lingering at the top of the stairs while Vanitas made for the front door. The relief Vanitas felt when he stepped outside was as sweet and cool as the night air itself, but it was a pyrrhic victory when he had to run out of what was technically his own home just to get some peace, leaving Xehanort to rant through the halls of his mansion alone like a gothic madman.

It wasn’t until the house was out of sight that Vanitas started shaking, just angry tremors in his arms and tightness in his shoulders. He cut across the grass toward the rarely-used side entrance of campus, and once he was past the buildings and street lamps, he pulled out his phone and started to type with trembling hands.

_my grandfather’s being a dick as usual, you free to hang out?_

Vanitas stared at the message, starting to both slow down and calm down. After rereading it a few times, he deleted it. Naminé could be sitting at home right now, trying to relax, or dealing with her own shit. Why would she want him to come over at 8:30 on a weeknight, after an abrupt and aggressively-worded text? He took out his lighter and a cigarette instead, throwing the latter down on the pavement as soon as he lit it. He crushed it under his sneaker, asked himself what the hell he was doing, put all the bad ideas back in his pockets, and went for a walk.

While he wanted to leave campus, he had no desire to go into town, so he stuck to the outskirts. Ten minutes into his walk, he got caught in a brief rainfall, little more than mist, and he slid his hood off to enjoy it. Rain was still hit or miss for Vanitas, but autumn rain was pleasant, even if it made it that much harder to stay warm. It was spring rain he couldn’t stand, though he wondered as he pulled his hood back up if he just disliked spring in general. The humidity, the thaw. The reveal of decaying plant and animal matter which had, in the preceding months, been mercifully buried beneath the snow. The entire season evoked the image of digging up a grave.

Or maybe he only thought that because he had, for lack of anywhere better to go, wound up taking a stroll through the cemetery.

* * *

The lights were off when Vanitas finally returned to the mansion. He noticed that Xehanort had been generous enough to clean his bathroom before retiring for the night, though the “cleaning” amounted to simply dumping all of Vanitas’s equipment indiscriminately and unceremoniously into the tub. His shampoo had been knocked off the shelf in the process, and since Vanitas never bothered to close the cap all the way, it had oozed a slimy, almond-scented puddle over everything for the past couple hours.

Vanitas rubbed his forehead, trying to erode the sight of the mess from his mind’s eye, and then he got to work. The photos he’d already developed were ruined. Xehanort had helpfully taken them down and stacked them on the counter, and they bled into each other, irreparably fused and indistinguishably gray. Vanitas didn’t bother to assess the damage or remind himself what images they had born. He peeled the garbage bag off the window and stuffed the damp photos in it, creating a little graveyard of his own.

He cleaned the trays next, an exhausting process as the shampoo sudsed up with each rinse and took forever to work its way down the drain. He laid a towel on the floor and leaned the trays against the wall to drip dry while he cleaned the tub itself, because the last thing he wanted to do tomorrow morning was postpone his shower to decontaminate his bathroom. When he was done, he tested the weight of his shampoo bottle, then capped it again—properly, this time—and turned it upside-down on the shelf.

He rinsed the rest of his equipment in the sink, and then cleaned that as well. He took everything back to his room, sorting all of the clips in separate plastic bags. He stacked the trays, coiled the clothesline back up, placed it inside the top tray along with the clips, the funnels, and the tongs, and slid everything onto the highest shelf of his closet. He returned to the bathroom to wash his hands thoroughly and brush his teeth hastily, and before he left, he retrieved the remaining film, still hidden away in the back of the cabinet.

Vanitas tried to look on the bright side. His grandfather had ruined a handful of photos, but most of Naminé’s were still safe, as was the photo Vanitas had taken after he got his camera back from her. He taped the film canister to the underside of his nightstand, and then, at well past midnight, he went to bed, burrowing under the blankets like a creature taking cover in the sand.


	5. Addled Impasse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters: Vanitas, Ienzo, and Even.

“Hey! Ienzo!”

Ienzo turned instinctively, then groaned when he saw who had called to him. “Oh, what do _you_ want?” he asked, having already dealt with his share of snarky comments today and honestly hoping to run on empty for the rest of the evening. It was the first chilly day of the season, and Ienzo had arrived at Higanbana that afternoon in corduroys and a knitted sweater. Isa, after a fleeting assessment at the door, had told Ienzo it was his best prank yet. Braig had simply stifled a laugh, twice as condemning as his usual sarcasm because it gave Ienzo no opportunity for a comeback. In the end, Ienzo only stayed for half an hour before deciding to turn in early.

A decision he now regretted, as it had put him on the same exact sidewalk at the same exact time as Vanitas. Ienzo looked at his classmate disdainfully as he jogged to catch up. “What, copying my tests isn’t enough? You have to copy my routes around town, too?”

“Tests, yes. Routes, no. You’re not that interesting.”

“Well, I won’t waste any more of your time, then. Have a good night.”

“Ienzo, hold up.”

As much as Ienzo hated taking orders from his peers, he _did_ hold up, because Vanitas sounded a little different than usual, and because he was one of the last people Ienzo had expected to run into in this area of town, and because unexpected situations were, admittedly, Ienzo’s catnip. Still, he made his face a more or less indifferent mask while Vanitas rummaged around in his pocket.

What he finally produced was a photograph, and not a very good one. It was creased from spending the day in Vanitas’s jeans, and the image itself was both poorly focused and poorly exposed, which were, naturally, the first things Ienzo pointed out.

“Oh, super. You’re an art critic now. Just when I thought you couldn’t get any more likable.”

Ienzo touched a black scribble on the photo, which blocked out one of the people in it. “Who’s she?”

“Don’t worry about her.”

“Wait, did you take this through a _window_? What are you, a stalker?”

“Jesus Christ, can we stop with the questions? This isn’t a guessing game. All I want to know is if you know who this guy is.”

The picture was clearly taken in haste, and if the blurry man was who Ienzo thought he was, then he had only seen him a couple times before. “Yes,” he said hesitantly. “At least, I think so. I’d be more certain if it were a color photo.”

“Like, if he had pink hair?” Ienzo looked up in surprise, telling Vanitas exactly what he needed to know. “Have you ever seen him around your club?”

“Why?”

“Is his name Marluxia?”

Ienzo hesitated again, not because he sensed something was wrong, but because he couldn’t sense where this was going at all. But he had no reason to feel suspicious, and he tried to banish the unwanted feeling by saying, “Yes.”

“Does he own the club you go to?”

“…yes?”

“Which one is it?”

“Oh, god. You’re not about to start going there, are you? Not that you’d even get in.”

“I don’t exist just to ruin whatever shitty fun you try to have, Ienzo.” After a pause, Vanitas added, “Wait, why not?”

“The price, for one thing.”

“Oh, get fucked.”

“That wasn’t a dig at you. Even the regulars complain about how expensive it is.”

“How the hell are you getting in, then?”

“I have connections.”

“Look, munny’s not an issue.”

“Well…it’s a gay club, obviously. And they wouldn’t dream of letting _you_ in unless you’re, you know, _with_ someone, I suppose. If you can even find anyone willing to associate with you long enough to pay the entry fee.”

“Gee, where oh _where_ am I gonna find someone to help me out in Radiant fucking Garden? You think I’ve lived here for a year without meeting any gay guys, dumbass? Besides you, anyway.”

“First of all, you have a _very_ funny way of asking for a favor. And secondly? No, I can’t say I have an easy time believing that you’ve somehow amassed a secret hoard of gay friends.”

“I do almost all my socializing at art shows and concerts for alternative indie bands, dipshit. I know the guy from Up To Eleven. He plays at these clubs, like, all the time, doesn’t he?”

Ienzo stared. “You know Demyx? _How_?”

“I was taking photos at the fountain court a while back. He was there, he asked me some questions about my camera, and we started talking. It’s not like we’re shoulder buddies or anything, we just see each other around sometimes. Why are you so surprised that we have someone in common, anyway?”

Ienzo _was_ surprised, and—as much as he didn’t want to admit it—uneasy. Demyx, people person that he was, would definitely vouch for Vanitas to get into the club, and what’s more, Isa might even permit it. In a somewhat juvenile desire to gain the upper hand, Ienzo said, “Well, just so you know? Your friend Demyx is hooking up with the club’s bartender, who happens to be the same guy who made your fake ID.”

With weary annoyance, Vanitas said, “That’s a big help, Ienzo. Can you just tell me which club it is already?”

“…Higanbana.”

“Great,” Vanitas said, folding the photo and putting it back in his pocket. Ienzo rolled his eyes. Not even a thank you, of course.

“Well, if there’s nothing else I can do for you,” he said in a mockery of politeness. But before he could leave, Vanitas spoke up again.

“You shouldn’t spend so much time there.”

“Well, I probably won’t, if you’re going to start showing up there now.”

“Seriously. Just…watch it.”

Ienzo paused, regarding Vanitas with the suspicion all tricksters had: that everyone else was looking for any opportunity to pull one over on them, too. But Vanitas sounded straightforward, his words holding no secret meaning or ulterior motive despite how cryptic they were. After a moment, he put his hands in his pockets and went back the way he’d come.

He left Ienzo feeling even more strongly that there was some important context he was missing. Something he couldn’t have been expected to discover on his own, which unsettled him to his core. He turned around and continued walking home, brow furrowed, the world wobbling on its axis with each step he took.

* * *

“I thought you were going out tonight.”

“I did. I’ve just got a lot of schoolwork to do.” Ienzo sat at the kitchen table, ignoring the open textbook in front of him. He’d tried to brush off his encounter with Vanitas, but some irrational little sliver of unease had gotten under his skin, and he’d carried it all the way home.

It must have been more obvious than he thought, because while he stared blankly at a paragraph about the history of the printing press, Even’s hand was suddenly at his forehead, trying to check his temperature through his messy bangs. Ienzo leaned away out of reflex rather than any real aversion to the touch. “What are you doing?”

“You seem dazed. Are you feeling feverish?”

“I’m fine. I’m just tired. It’s been a weird day.”

Ienzo didn’t realize how different “a long day” and “a weird day” sounded until Even stood there, waiting for an explanation. He never outright asked Ienzo if he wanted to talk. For Even, withholding his own commentary was invitation enough. Ienzo wasn’t sure what to say. All he really knew was that Vanitas had been on edge about something, which was hardly breaking news.

“I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “It was just a weird day. I ran into Vanitas downtown on my way—”

“You had a run-in with him? What did he do? I can call the school; you know Ansem has a lot of clout there.”

“No, Dad. Geez. We didn’t ‘have a run-in,’ we ran into each other. It was just…weird. I don’t know. It threw me off.” Ienzo nudged the corner of his textbook, then aligned it with the table’s edge again. “I just felt like staying in tonight, okay?”

Even held his hands up. “All right. Of course that’s fine. You know I’ve encouraged you to spend less time at that place, anyway.”

“I know.”

“Not that you _listen_.”

“I listen.”

“I know.” Even studied Ienzo for a few moments, just to ensure that he was, in fact, fine, before giving him a little nod and returning to the sink. Ienzo tried to focus on his homework again, though he was frequently derailed by the sounds of his father loading the dishwasher and repeatedly crossing the room. Ienzo could have easily gone upstairs, but something about the kitchen fostered an environment of learning for him. He couldn’t explain it. Maybe it was the traditional and minimalist Japanese decor, or being able to sit on the floor with his books and papers spread across the table. It suited his studying needs oddly and perfectly.

Except when Even was running the faucet and clanging the dishes and silverware every few seconds. Ienzo put his elbow on the table and worked his hand up into his hair, staring at the textbook, refusing to try and make sense of it until he had quiet. He could never and likely _would_ never understand why his father cleaned so loudly. Maybe it was the loudness itself that was his goal, and the fact that things happened to get clean in the process was nothing but a fluke.

When Even finally finished up, he folded the dish towel and laid it along the edge of the counter, and on his way out of the room, he placed something beside Ienzo’s studying materials. Ienzo glanced over his shoulder, staring quizzically at his father’s retreating back, before he looked down at the table and saw a small plate of chopped, assorted fruit. While Even had always rolled his eyes at terms like “brain food,” he knew better than to deny the benefits of fresh sources of vitamins and minerals. The plate he had set down for Ienzo was laden mostly with melon and mango, alkaline-forming fruits to reduce the chance of reflux. An offering of non-acidic “brain food,” to nourish the mind and soothe the heart.

Ienzo glanced at the family room again, but Even was out of sight, already back in his office. After arranging the floor pillow so he could sit more comfortably, Ienzo pulled his textbook closer and nibbled on a small slice of papaya. There was no way of knowing whether it would actually boost his brain power or not. But as he helped himself to a cube of melon next, he realized that, at the very least, he was feeling a little better, and the more he ate, the easier it was to settle in for his study session, and the more the world seemed to settle back into place around him, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I barely write about him, but Even is legitimately one of my favorite characters in this entire fic.


	6. Just Wondering

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters: Isa, Lea, and Lea's mom.  
(Brief mention of homophobic slurs.)

Water dripped from the gutters, pattering on the Quinlans’ walkway and front steps. Isa sat on the couch and flipped through his book from cover to cover, the sound of the pages matching the raindrops in their gentle repetitiveness. Normally, he would have gone out with Lea to keep him company while he ran some overdue errands, but enduring the hours-long drive to and from Traverse Town did not rank high on Isa’s list of fun ideas. Especially in the rain.

Besides, his mind was occupied by other things today. It had been four and a half months since he moved into the Quinlans’ house—enough time to finally start thinking of himself as more than just a long-term guest. Four and a half months since Lea first told Isa that he loved him, and four and a half months since Isa barely managed to say it back. In all that time, he’d only ever said it as an incomplete thought, lacking a subject, or as a response to Lea saying it first. Always a, “Love you,” or, more frequently, a, “Love you, too.”

Isa was still spacing out and flipping idly through the book, letting the breeze waft the finer strands of hair away from his face, when Ms. Quinlan appeared in the doorway. “Mind if I join you?” she asked, holding up a pair of mugs. “I’m prepared to offer a bribe.”

Isa scooted over to make room, gratefully accepting one of the cups. Early April was past the season for hot chocolate, but they had plenty left over from winter, and Isa would never dream of turning it down. Ms. Quinlan took a seat beside him and said, “So, what are you not reading?”

“Something for school. Surprise, surprise,” Isa said, tossing the book onto the coffee table.

“Yeah, that was pretty much my attitude when I was your age.” Ms. Quinlan swirled her drink to keep the powder from settling. “Still drizzling out there, huh? Did Lea take an umbrella?”

“Is that a serious question?”

Ms. Quinlan chuckled. “Guess not. Well, the flowers will love it, at least.”

“Mhmm.” They sat in silence for a few minutes, sipping their drinks and watching the rain trickle down the window, before Ms. Quinlan looked up at him.

“Oh, hey. I was trying to figure out what to do for dinner tonight. Got any suggestions?” Isa raised his eyebrows skeptically, and she blinked. “What?”

“You know, you can just ask.”

“Ask what?” she replied, in a truly pitiful attempt to pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about. Isa rolled his eyes.

“They haven’t arrived yet. Trust me, I’ve been checking. I even told Lea to stop by the post office on his way home, just in case.”

Ms. Quinlan sighed. “Fair enough. It’s mainly RGU you’re waiting to hear from, right?”

“Yeah, that’s still our top choice.” Isa linked his fingers around the mug, trying to absorb its warmth. “And it’s the only school we both applied to. The others are all over an hour apart. I guess whatever happens happens, but…” He shrugged, and Ms. Quinlan gave him an understanding look.

“Long distance relationships are a nuisance at the best of times. Can’t even imagine it after ten years of living only a mile away. Or right down the hall,” she added, getting Isa to smile a bit. “I know we’re all feeling anxious, but I wouldn’t worry. You guys are a shoo-in. Just promise you’ll let me know as soon as the letters arrive?”

“Of course.”

With a satisfied nod, she downed the rest of her drink and offered to bring Isa’s mug back to the kitchen. He took the last and most chocolate-saturated gulp and handed it to her with a brief thank-you.

And then, not knowing why, he added, “For everything.”

He was as caught off guard as she was; he didn’t realize that the urge to thank her was one he still had. But sitting on the couch like this in the middle of the day, drinking hot chocolate for no reason whatsoever, waiting for Lea to come home, all made him reflect on how much his life had changed since moving into this house. He hadn’t had to tiptoe around why he was going out on February 14—he and Lea had simply told Ms. Quinlan that they had plans for dinner, and she told them to have a good time and wished them a happy Valentine’s Day. He didn’t have to brace himself for demeaning “jokes” while he was washing dishes—whoever entered the kitchen would simply join him at the sink and help. And waiting to hear back from colleges wasn’t just anxiety-inducing—it was a little exciting.

“I know I said it back when I first moved in,” Isa went on, “but…it really means a lot. I don’t know what I would have done if it weren’t for you and Lea. I should’ve gotten out of there a long time ago, but you two were the reason I finally managed to walk out the door.”

“Isa,” Ms. Quinlan began, “_you’re_ the reason you walked out the door. Everything you did—”

But Isa was shaking his head, slowly and decisively. “I wouldn’t have left if I didn’t have somewhere to go. You guys…” He scratched at his hair for a minute before tucking it behind his ear. “You two being here changed everything for me.”

Ms. Quinlan nodded, reminding herself that she was speaking to eighteen-year-old Isa, not sixteen-year-old Cat. “Well, I’m glad we were here for you, too,” she said. “And you’re welcome, of course. In every way.” He smiled, and she knew that if she returned to the kitchen now, the conversation wouldn’t feel as if it were left unfinished. But just like Isa’s urge to express gratitude, her urge to express contrition rose up without warning, more suddenly than she could contain it.

“And…” She put the empty mugs on the coffee table, unable to take herself seriously with a prop in each hand. “In the interest of full honesty…I owe you an apology.”

Isa’s gaze moved across the room and then back to her, as if searching for an explanation. “You already…gave me one?” he replied. “And you didn’t have to. I know you feel bad—Lea does, too—but it’s not like you could’ve done anything about it. You didn’t know.”

Ms. Quinlan picked at a loose thread on the couch cushion. “The thing is…I think I _did_ know. Something was always off about your father—about how he spoke to you. And you—you always seemed so worried.” She smoothed the thread into place again before she looked at Isa and, in a repeat of the day he moved in, said, “I’m sorry, Isa. Back in Traverse Town, I never had a problem telling off other kids’ parents. I don’t know why I held back with yours. I think I just wanted to do right by both of you. You were Lea’s best friend—you were his _only_ friend for a while there. I figured the last thing you two needed was for your parents to be sniping at each other all the time.”

Isa wanted to make some kind of wry, self-deprecating comment, just to lighten the mood. But Ms. Quinlan had the same look on her face that Lea got whenever he was troubled by something that he struggled to put into words. Isa stayed quiet and watched her run her thumb over her knuckles as she gathered her thoughts. “I didn’t do the right thing,” she finally said. “And by the time I realized this wasn’t a self-correcting problem, it had already gotten worse. I’m sorry we didn’t…I don’t know. Do more, I guess. Give you more support or…security, or something.”

She looked more upset than Isa had ever seen her, and her attempts to reassure him instilled in him a desire to reassure her right back. “You know,” he began, “there’s a reason I came over here so much when I was younger. This _was_ where I felt secure. And you two were, like…the only ones who ever stood up to him, at all.” Isa laughed a little in spite of himself. “Lea avoided him, mostly. And when he didn’t want to, I made him do it anyway. But he didn’t hold back what he said about my father, when it was just him and me.”

Ms. Quinlan snorted. “I’m sure he didn’t.”

“It was nice to hear someone put it so bluntly. But you were the only adult who ever talked back to him, to his face. I didn’t even know people could _do_ that.” Isa chewed on this, putting the pieces together as he put them into words. “I think that was what finally made me talk back to him myself. You know, before I came here. Before he hit me,” he clarified, just to stop skirting around the ugly truth of what was done to him. “You think you didn’t do enough, but you showed me it was possible to stand up to him. I know I just ended up provoking him, but I think it turned out for the best.”

Ms. Quinlan smiled, looking both reassured and more troubled than before. “Well, that’s a relief to hear. I tried not to make things worse, but I didn’t want to just be passive, either. The last thing I wanted was to end up turning into my mother after all.”

Isa nodded as if he understood, trying to remember if he’d ever heard Ms. Quinlan mention her family before. “_Was_ she that passive, though? I mean…didn’t she kick you out?” Ms. Quinlan gave him a questioning look, and he added, “Sorry. I’m not trying to pry.”

“You’re not prying, Isa. We’re talking. But no, they didn’t kick me out. I left, same as you. I guess I was always an impulsive kid; I made a lot of snap decisions. But that one was a little extreme, even for me.”

“It must’ve been pretty bad, though. To make you want to leave like that.”

She twirled the loose thread between her fingers again, rolling it as tight as it would go before letting the spiral unravel. “Most of it seems like nothing, in hindsight,” she admitted. “What really got to me was how they treated Lea. I mean, he wasn’t even _Lea_ then. But they talked about him like he was just some problem to be solved. No consideration for me, and even less for him.” She closed her eyes and shook her head, banishing the thought. “Well, I can’t say he missed out on much, but they sure as hell did.”

“So…you just up and left one day, just like that? And made it all the way to Traverse Town?”

“Sure did. Well, more or less. Took me a night to get everything in order, but once I started packing the suitcase, I didn’t have any second thoughts. But it wasn’t easy. Even in the low-income neighborhoods, we were…pretty low-income. Not that this place is a mansion or anything, but if you could’ve seen our first house…”

Isa hesitated. “Actually…Lea and I went to Traverse Town a while back—maybe a year ago? We wandered around while the truck was in the shop, and after ten or fifteen minutes, Lea said we were near his old neighborhood. I don’t know how he even recognized it, but his face lit up as soon as he saw the house. I had to keep him from running straight into the yard, like he forgot there was another family living there now.”

“Oh, yes. The ‘yard,’” Ms. Quinlan said with a self-deprecating laugh. “All right, so, you know what I’m talking about. Pretty rough, huh?”

“I mean…yeah. I wouldn’t have even gone down that street if it weren’t for Lea insisting we check it out. As usual.” Ms. Quinlan smiled fondly—curiously, Isa realized, as interested in learning about her own son from Isa’s perspective as he was in learning about Lea’s childhood from hers. “I know we spent a lot of time together,” he went on, “but those first few years before we met were always a mystery to me. He didn’t keep secrets or anything; he just never seemed to think that talking about Traverse Town was important. But once we were there…I don’t know. Maybe the nostalgia kicked in. He said the front steps looked just like he remembered them. We even walked down the side street so he could show me the tree out back.”

“Okay, mother of the year here, but I swear, that tree was so puny I barely had to watch him when he played on it. There were, like, four branches that were even big enough to support him.” She shook her head, sighing. “Man…kinda embarrassed you saw that.”

“He wasn’t embarrassed to show me,” Isa said, wanting more than anything for her to understand. “The way he described it…he was just excited to finally share his childhood with me.”

Ms. Quinlan paused, too touched to even smile for a moment, though the expression found its way to her face quickly enough. “Well,” she said, “I’m glad he remembers it fondly, but I’m just as glad we got out of there when we did. I’d do anything for my kid, but going toe-to-toe with PTA moms got old fast. Not that it did much good, anyway—they’d already taught their kids the pecking order. Hate to say it, but Lea learned the word ‘bastard’ at a pretty young age.”

“Yeah…to be fair, we learned the word ‘fag’ pretty young, too.”

Ms. Quinlan set her jaw. “You know,” she said with a very level tone, “no matter how many times I told that kid to let me know when he was being bullied, I always knew he was keeping some of it to himself.”

Isa shrugged. “It’s kind of an embarrassing one to admit. He might have been too young to know what ‘bastard’ even meant, but…I dunno how to explain it. You’re just sort of born knowing the other one.”

Ms. Quinlan shook her head, then glanced at Isa again. “When you two were dealing with bullies, right around the start of high school, do you remember what I said?” Isa nodded, but she repeated it anyway. “I told you that if you were in trouble, you should come to me, and I’d help. That’s exactly what you did when you came here last year, and I hope it’s something you’ll continue to do if the need arises.” She tried not to think about herself sitting at the dinner table all those years ago as she added, “I know it can feel awkward to bring these things up, but…I want to know if something happens. I want you two to be able to tell me.”

“Yeah, I remember. And it’s kind of funny that you bring that up…I mean, that specific day, if it’s the same one I’m thinking of. Lea punched one of our classmates in the face?”

“Yes, that would be the one.”

“It’s just…that was also the day we kind of officially started dating.”

“Oh, believe me, I’m _well_ aware,” Ms. Quinlan said. “You should’ve seen him when he got home that night after walking you back. I was planning to give him another lecture, but the _strut_ on that kid. Walked right into the family room, and before I could say a word, he took his jacket off, threw it down on the couch like a slam dunk, and said, ‘Ma, guess who’s got a boyfriend!’”

Isa couldn’t help laughing as she mimed her way through the story, even better at impersonating Lea than Lea was at impersonating her. “So…what did you think?” he asked. He knew the answer, but part of him still wanted to retroactively prove to that nervous fourteen-going-on-fifteen-year-old that not everyone disapproved of him, and that things would ultimately turn out okay.

“I was happy for him, of course—for both of you. I also thought he was a very clever kid, weaseling out of a lecture like that. Mostly, I was confused. I thought you two had been together for at least a year already.”

“I guess we were. It’s kind of funny, in hindsight. When Lea stepped in, the guy said something like, ‘What, you need your _boyfriend_ to protect you?’ It should’ve been obvious by that point, but we just never really talked about it before. I guess we kind of owe him for helping us figure it out.” Isa chuckled. “Though if you ask Lea, he’ll probably tell you that we’ve been together for closer to ten years. Pretty much since we met.”

“Oh, boy. Do you remember that day?” Ms. Quinlan asked, apparently in a reminiscing mood now. “Dumb question, I know.”

“I remember being a little startled. He was…a pretty excitable kid.”

“Yeah, his ADHD was more intense when he was younger,” Ms. Quinlan agreed. “We didn’t know much about treating it back then. But he spent the entire drive home babbling on and on about his afternoon. The first thing I managed to piece together was that I apparently had to take you two on a day trip to Disney Town. In the end, though, the thing he was most excited about was that he’d made a friend.” Ms. Quinlan watched Isa smile, letting him sit with that detail for a moment. “It was tough at first, moving here. I was afraid to keep living in Traverse Town, but Lea was afraid to live anywhere else. He didn’t get along with most of the kids at his old school, but at least he was familiar with them. And you know Lea—he loves to have the spotlight, but not by himself.”

Isa laughed quietly, thinking about all the times Lea had gotten excited about some crazy prank or stunt, only for his enthusiasm to wilt when Isa expressed doubt, and then flare right back up again when Isa relented with an overly-exasperated sigh.

“I worried about him,” Ms. Quinlan went on. “Those early years were stressful enough, and on top of everything else, I wondered if he’d be bullied, or ostracized, or if he’d be able to find friends. But you found each other. You guys _and_ Demyx, come to think of it. It’s like you just knew how to gravitate toward each other.”

“Yes, we have a knack for that,” Isa said dryly. “It’s a homing mechanism, I think.”

Ms. Quinlan gave him a gentle shove. “Yeah, yeah, wise guy. You really did, though. And god, Isa, I can’t even tell you what a weight that was off my shoulders. As much as Lea helped you come out of your shell, you helped him put one foot in front of the other instead of just bouncing off the walls. Both of you were exactly what the other one needed.” She tried to get Isa to make eye contact as she said, “You mean the world to him, I hope you know. I’m sure he tells you, but still.”

She watched Isa patiently, knowing that the words were in there somewhere, and Isa took a breath and let them stay where they were, unformed. “He does,” he said carefully. “And he—both of you, being here…it means everything to me. If you hadn’t moved to Radiant Garden when you did, or at all…I don’t even know what I’d be doing right now.”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that hypotheticals are for the future,” Ms. Quinlan said, simply but firmly. “You’re here now. And seriously, Isa, thank goodness for that. Right from the beginning, I just felt better knowing you two were sticking together. Week after week I kept hearing your name, when Lea would ask me to drive him to your house, or say you guys would be hanging out after school. I’m telling you, it lowered my stress levels by about fifty percent. And then getting to see you two grow up together, and not only stay best friends, but turn into something more…” When she saw how flustered Isa was getting, she waved her hand, pulling the conversation back from its swerve into sentimental territory. “I won’t get all sappy, don’t worry. It’s just been one of the greatest joys of my life, that’s all.”

Isa laughed, appreciating her dismissive tone even as it filled him with guilt. Lea had been tailoring his behavior to suit Isa’s comfort zone for years, and now his mother was doing the same thing. “Well, I’m glad I could…help, I guess?”

“You really did,” she replied with total honesty. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you being there for Lea. Being there for him meant you were there for me, too. I love that kid to death.”

Isa wondered if she’d given him that opening on purpose. He took a quiet breath, made himself get a little brave, and said, “Yeah…so do I.”

She smiled and reached over, ruffling Isa’s hair the same way he’d always seen her do to Lea’s, signaling a successful end to the conversation. But when she stood, she leaned down briefly to kiss the top of his now disheveled head. “I love you too, by the way,” she said before picking the mugs up off the coffee table and finally bringing them to the kitchen. Isa leaned back against the couch, sitting quietly with his closed book in his hands again, listening to Ms. Quinlan rinse out the cups and start preparing dinner while he reflected on everything he’d just said and everything he’d just been told.

* * *

“Yo, who’s home?” Lea’s voice rang out as he shut the front door. “Ma? Isa? I’ve got news and I wanna share it.”

“In here,” Isa said from his seat at the table. Ms. Quinlan had gone upstairs to take a quick shower before dinner, leaving Isa to keep an eye on the food as it simmered. The entire house was suffused with warm, inviting smells, helping him ground his thoughts and then let them go again.

“There you are,” Lea said as he entered the kitchen, as if he’d tracked Isa down himself. He dropped his messenger bag on the floor by the counter and went to the stove, moving a pot to the back burner and turning the heat down. “Well, you were smart to stay home. Most boring drive I’ve ever taken in my life. Plus, they took like an hour and a half just to install the part—total fucking rip-off. I would’ve brought it home and done it myself if I thought the truck could handle the return journey without it. But _anyway_—”

He stooped down to rummage in his bag, oblivious to Isa’s lack of banter. “Tada!” he said, standing up again with two large envelopes from the Radiant Garden University admissions office. “Didn’t open them yet, I promise. Figured we should have something stress-inducing to do over dinner. Though Ma’s gonna make us open them as soon as she sees.” He held one envelope out to Isa. “Here. This one’s yours.”

Isa rose from his chair, crossed the kitchen, and wrapped his arms around Lea’s neck. He stood there calmly, holding Lea close, while Lea froze with an envelope in each hand, his arms raised uselessly on either side of Isa. “What?” he asked. “Did something happen? What is it?”

Instead of answering, Isa leaned up and kissed him. Lea paused again, not sure which of several responses he was going to go with, and then he reached behind Isa, needing a few tries to put the envelopes down on the counter. He placed his hands on Isa’s waist, returning the kiss for a moment before gently pushing him away. “No, seriously,” he said, concern elbowing its way in beside confusion. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Isa said simply. “I love you.”

“…love you, too?” Lea said, still trying to figure out what had prompted this behavior. But Isa, having said and done exactly what he meant to, turned his attention to the mail.

“We should tell your mom about this before dinner’s ready,” he said, inspecting the envelopes. “Maybe she’ll buy us champagne.”

Lea still regarded him with faint suspicion, but he relaxed a little, leaning against the counter. “Think you might be jumping the gun there? We don’t know if we got in yet.”

Isa raised the envelopes up and down to demonstrate their heaviness. “Look at the size of these things,” he said, with the calmest confidence Lea could ever remember seeing on his face. “We got in.”


	7. You Smiled At Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flashback chapter.  
Characters: Catherine and Lea.

Cat Quinlan was a monster. Her feet were swollen, her nail beds were sore, and acid reflux sizzled in her chest every other night. Her gums bled at the slightest provocation, leaving sickly red stains on her dental tape and a pungent smell in her mouth. She had dark, coarse hair in places that she refused to believe had any evolutionary advantage in the process of childbirth, and were obviously put there to punish her for being the irresponsible teenager her aunt always insisted she was.

But what truly convinced her of her newfound monsterhood was the fact that her son, at twelve meager weeks of age, absolutely hated her.

When he was born, Cat had experienced a happiness so powerful that it lifted her to another plane of existence, blissfully detached from the bustling nurses and messy hospital room. When she brought him home, the happiness faded, but the detachment remained. She went through the motions. She sang to him every night, trying to remember all the lullabies she’d ever heard in her relatively short life, and then making up nonsensical new ones so he wouldn’t get bored. She kissed him, fed him, bathed him, told him she loved him. She did everything, and she did it every day, all the time.

It took her eight weeks to realize that, in spite of all her attention and care, her son hadn’t smiled once. Everyone assured her that it was normal for babies not to smile until around this time, but when week twelve rolled around, it started to feel like a crisis. She continued singing to him, playing with him, talking to him, cuddling him. Sometimes he’d stare at her, focused and confused, trying to puzzle something out with his little brain. Cat would stare back without moving a muscle, every atom primed for that moment when his face would finally light up, and he would realize that she was his mother and she loved him more than she loved herself—though that wasn’t a particularly high bar these days.

Eventually he would give up or get distracted, his attention wandering across the room, and Cat would be left to wonder what she was doing so inherently wrong.

She felt hollowed, as if someone had taken a scooper and gently scraped out everything inside her, leaving a dry mannequin husk behind. Early in the pregnancy, she’d been a little off-balance, a little nauseous, but still herself. But for the past few months, she felt like she had existed for the sole purpose of carrying her child and delivering him into being. She figured she’d get some relief once her body was hers again, if nothing else.

She didn’t feel relief. She didn’t feel much of anything as she lay on her stomach on the bed, her chin resting on her arm. Her son lay on his back before her, and Cat used her free hand to play with his feet. She couldn’t tell if he particularly enjoyed it, but he didn’t seem to mind, either.

He was alert, at least. He gazed around the room from his odd angle on the bed. Cat thought about how long it would be before he’d be able to sit up by himself, let alone stand upright. He’d be looking at the world from odd angles for quite a while. And the world would look oddly back, wondering if he knew that his mother was a seventeen-year-old freak who couldn’t even wrangle instinctive, brainless, unconditional love out of her own kid.

She tried tickling his foot. He kicked. She tried tickling his stomach. He squirmed, but didn’t laugh, looking more perplexed than anything else. Cat took a deep breath and let it out slowly. What hadn’t she tried? She had devoted every moment of free time to her son over the past few weeks. She’d neglected her own care and wants and needs for this kid, and he couldn’t even make an expression so basic that most newborns stumbled into it by accident.

Cat stared at the wallpaper of her one-room apartment, trying to disperse the brain fog. She _had_ been neglecting herself lately. She ate and showered semi-regularly, but what else? She mentally rewound the past several weeks, all the way back to the birth. Had she smiled since then, even once? She had no way of knowing—it wasn’t as if she kept a detailed log of her facial expressions—but she couldn’t imagine that she had.

Cat heaved herself up onto her elbows. She rubbed her eyes with both hands while her son looked on, playing the most miserable version of peek-a-boo in human history. He watched her intently as she brought her hands back down, sensing something different about her behavior.

She exhaled and made a genuine attempt to smile, but thanks to her weariness, self-consciousness, or postpartum depression—which Cat was finally willing to admit she had—she snuffed it out before it could form. With an admonishing shake of her head, she reminded herself that no one else was around to judge her, and for no particular reason and with no particular source, she smiled.

Any adult would spot it as a fake instantly. Her son seemed to notice something off about it, too. He was surprised, beholding her expression for the first time and trying to make sense of it. Cat watched the tiny gears turn in his head, and she realized that in teaching him how to smile, she was teaching herself how to do it again, too.

“C’mon, peanut,” she urged, playing with his feet while he studied her face. It felt odd to teach him to smile at all. She couldn’t remember ever learning how. But she’d had an entire family to observe, naturally picking up on their cues as they interacted with each other. All her child had was her. She had to do everything. She had to _be_ everything.

She was tired, and her son was still staring at her, uncomprehending and a tad concerned. But she gave her jaw a little massage and tried again, and without warning, she was greeted in return by a brand new smile.

She’d never seen anything like it. His smile was both a reaction to a new discovery and the discovery itself. It was clumsy and boundless and born of pure instinct. His entire face shone with it. It was gone in seconds, hidden by a stormcloud of puzzlement once more, but that brief sighting made Cat’s own smile suddenly effortless. She no longer had to dredge up an expression of happiness. It descended on her like sunlight, weightless and warm.

“Hi, Lea,” she whispered, as if they’d only just met. “Hi.”

He grinned with what Cat hoped was recognition of his own name, pumping his arms up and down excitedly. He let the smile drop again, seeming confused about its purpose, but he must have found some enjoyment in it, because it returned more easily every time.

Eventually, his arms slowed to a stop, and Cat could see the epiphany in his eyes, the realization that this was more than just a fun new game. He reached for her, trying to grab whatever intangible thing was growing between them. She laughed and offered her finger for him to hold onto, but his still-developing motor control was no match for her mood swings, and her smile melted into a grimace as she lowered her head. She lay down beside Lea, burying her face in her arm again with a quiet but emphatic, “_Fuck_.”

Like the smiling, the crying came with no real reason and no real prompting. It came without sobs as well—just heavy, wet, shaky breaths that Cat expelled against the faded quilt. In lieu of her finger, Lea grasped at her hair, working his small hands into the mass of red spikes and split ends. Cat let him do whatever he wanted—even when what he wanted was to tangle his fingers in her hair and tug—while she tried to get the sudden swelling of emotion out of her system.

She was still teary-eyed when she lifted her head, and it dismayed Lea to see such a different expression from the one she had worn a moment ago. But she was emoting and he was responding, which was more than they’d accomplished over the last several weeks. Cat hauled herself onto her side, taking Lea in her arm and lifting his hands. She kissed his fingertips one after the other, making her way across both hands, then reversed her direction, going back to the start. Halfway through her return trip, Lea reached for her face again, still trying to understand the mystery of it.

Cat made silly noises to entertain him as he explored her chin and nose and eyebrows and ears. She couldn’t help feeling a little insane as the series of nonsense sounds tumbled past her lips, but she reassured herself that her son had no reference point for how strangely she was behaving. Five minutes ago, he hadn’t even known what a smile was.

But he knew now, and he filled the rest of the evening with them, smiling with total abandon and for no discernible reason. He smiled at the water stains on the beige ceiling when he lay on the bed. He smiled at the faucet when Cat filled the sink for his bath. He even smiled at himself, when he noticed that an idle smile had settled on his face for nearly a full minute. And at the end of the night, when Cat laid him in his crib and mumbled a lullaby through stifled yawns, Lea beamed up at her with sleepy adoration, and she knew he was no longer smiling at random, or even at her singing.

He was simply smiling at her.


	8. Mano A Mano

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters: the Higanbana crew (minus Ienzo, plus Vanitas), and Catherine.  
Not to spoil anything, but this chapter is where that "Major Character Injury" tag comes in. So...just a heads-up there.

If someone had told Braig half a year ago that he’d eventually come to miss the sight of Ienzo sitting at his usual table, or perched on a bar stool with a book—_just_ near enough to stay annoyingly within Braig’s peripheral vision—he would have asked them to remind him who Ienzo was, just to prove them wrong.

The kid had been depriving the Higanbana staff of his delightful presence lately. According to Aeleus, he had his hands full with college applications and essays, which sounded like a fair enough reason to the rest of the crew. Still, the fact remained that everyone’s favorite egghead had spent the better part of 2019 establishing a pattern only to disrupt it. And whenever Braig found his gaze automatically straying to the now-empty table six, he was forced to admit that the only thing more unsettling than Ienzo’s sudden appearance was his sudden absence.

It seemed the universe was just as displeased with the space Ienzo had left behind, and it sent Higanbana a replacement in the form of some little punk with a frayed hoodie and perpetual bedhead. Normally, the kid wouldn’t have made it past the front door, but Demyx had inexplicably vouched for him, and Isa had even more inexplicably given them the “do what you want; I’m too busy to care” handwave, so in he came.

When the newcomer picked out a seat at the bar, Braig slipped into the version of himself that was both charming and child-friendly. He asked the kid what he was looking for, then denied his attempt to order a Grand Cross, nodding at the X on his hand and saying, “Sorry—off-limits without a valid ID.”

“How about an invalid ID?”

Braig hit him with a hard look, which Vanitas returned with a level of cool confidence that Braig resented in someone so young. The bartender lowered his voice and repeated, “What, _exactly,_ are you looking for here?”

Vanitas said in an equally low voice, “Not you.” Braig stared him down, but the kid seemed to mean it, so Braig—as close to reassured as he could be—suggested a more age-appropriate drink. Vanitas took his recommendation and proceeded to more or less ignore him, swiveling his stool around while he sipped his Shadow Dive and tried to figure out if he liked it or not. With a humbling amount of relief, Braig went back to work, trying not to worry about the number of self-righteous and conniving high-schoolers he’d given the opportunity to blackmail him.

* * *

It was a windy Thursday evening that found Higanbana at half capacity. Their usual customer base was back on campus, cramming for their last round of mid-terms, and the few stragglers who made it through the doors brought an odd energy with them, kicked into a flurry by the gusting winds. It was fine by Isa; if they wanted to spend the night dancing themselves into oblivion and back, getting wasted on overpriced drinks that he suspected Braig improvised more often than not, he wasn’t going to stand in their way. Frankly, he considered Higanbana lucky to be receiving any business at all. Who left their dorm on a Thursday night during midterms to go drinking and dancing, with the ghosts of a tropical storm sweeping up from the south?

He tried to rein in his complaints, even the mental ones, but it was a long day and a blustery night and a slow season and Isa was _tired_. He wasn’t the only one, at least. Aeleus stifled a yawn, only for Dilan to finish it from across the room. They were unusually weary this evening, and Isa was just as unusually lax about it. When he caught Dilan leaning against the edge of the bar, it was a commiserating look Isa gave him instead of a reprimanding one.

Nothing was wrong, but little things felt off. Ienzo’s usual spot was empty. His heterosexual doppelgänger sat at the bar, just like he’d done on two other nights this week. Braig was focused wholly on his job for once, lacking the energy to be his philandering self even with Demyx loitering by the counter.

Isa checked his watch, then tapped the microphone at his podium, announcing that anyone below the age of eighteen would be required to vacate the premises before nine o’ clock. No sooner had he made the announcement than a group of blatant high schoolers arrived, wanting to know if the club was still open to minors. Isa replied, “Only for the next half hour,” which they took to mean that they should go inside, get comfortable at the bar, and start ordering a round of drinks and appetizers. Isa caught Braig shooting him an unamused look, and he shrugged. He’d retrieve them at 8:55. Until then, they were the bartender’s headache, not his.

Around a quarter to the hour, Isa started making his rounds before Higanbana turned into an adults-only venue. The first item on his agenda was texting Lea, just to make sure he hadn’t nodded off on the break room couch.

_You’d better be awake, or you’re going to leave all three of our patrons very disappointed._

He slid his phone into his pocket, taking it back out immediately when it buzzed.

_i can do this job in my sleep ;)_

Isa snorted and put his phone away again, glancing at the bar. Braig looked as annoyed as before, and Vanitas scowled as one of the latecomers laughed loudly with his friends, just a little too close to his ear. He repeatedly stuck his elbow into Vanitas’s personal space—carelessly at first, then deliberately when Vanitas shoved him away—and both of them ignored Demyx’s attempts to mediate the situation. When Isa caught Braig and Dilan’s eyes, they responded with a head shake and a nod, respectively. They were simple gestures that communicated two things: that Braig had already cut the group off, and that Dilan planned to evict them within the next few minutes. Isa left them to it, crossing the floor to check in with Aeleus. He paused at an empty table to rearrange his clipboard, frowning when he realized he’d spent the entire evening looking at yesterday’s itinerary. He only had a moment to berate himself for this oversight before Dilan barked, “Hey!” and drew Isa’s attention back to the bar.

Vanitas and his antagonizer were locked together, a mess of shuffling feet and sharp elbows pushing against sweatshirt sleeves as each one tried to get leverage over the other. One of the kid’s friends joined the fray and managed to snake his arm around Vanitas’s neck, trying to subdue him. Dilan was already on his way to break up the fight, but before he could get there, Vanitas twisted his arm free and lashed out at his assailants, quick as lightning. He missed both marks, striking the underside of the counter instead, but the sound of glass shattering was enough to make both of them let go, and enough to freeze Isa where he stood.

Whether it was the explosion of glass, the unseasonably violent weather, or just a situation that had been a long time coming at Higanbana, all hell broke loose. The rest of the group swarmed to their friend’s side, cornering Vanitas at the bar and drawing the surrounding crowd into the chaos. Hands struck and grasped indiscriminately, some trying to quell the fight and others trying to exacerbate it. When Braig reached across the counter to separate the worst offenders, Vanitas made his escape. He bolted to the entrance with his injured hand stuffed under his arm, battering the door open with his shoulder and fleeing into the night.

The skirmish had already gathered enough momentum to continue on without him. The crowd, which had been so small a minute ago, seemed to grow exponentially as the fighting spread. Isa’s heart jumped to his throat when he saw Demyx being dragged over the top of the counter, until he realized that he was being hauled to safety—however haphazardly—by Braig, who wasted no time in grabbing Higanbana’s resident rock star by his belt and the back of his jacket. Demyx slid out of sight, and while Isa had to imagine a rough landing in store for him on the other side of the bar, he hoped that was where he’d stay.

Isa stepped forward, urged on by the irrational voice in his head telling him that this situation—like all of them—was somehow his responsibility to deal with. That little voice, thankfully, was overpowered by Aeleus’s massive hand pulling Isa back, undoing the few steps he’d taken and then some. Isa barely had time to catch his breath as Aeleus pushed down on his shoulder, forcing him to the floor behind a table and ordering, “_Stay here_.”

Isa obeyed, eager to relinquish control as soon as someone else told him he could, and Aeleus went to aid his coworkers. Dilan was doing his best, but he’d been expecting to break up a fight between two teenagers, not an all-out brawl. He grabbed patrons by their collars and forced them apart, shoving half the perpetrators at Aeleus for further separation. While they handled the overall crowd control, Braig vaulted over the bar and made a beeline for the kid who had started the fight with Vanitas. He grabbed him with no fanfare, no posturing, and no threats—just an animal subduing its quarry, silent and efficient.

Braig twisted the kid’s arm behind his back with an effortlessness that suggested he’d done this before, often enough to have developed a muscle memory for it. As he held the limb in place, a few degrees away from dislocation, Isa finally understood what he meant all those times he described himself as a “professional.” Braig was a professional in every situation you never wanted to find yourself in—but when you did, you’d better hope he’d be on your side.

Isa watched in horror, trying to understand how Higanbana had turned into the madhouse he always jokingly claimed it was. He looked out across the room, surreally removed from the violence until his gaze drifted toward the back of the club. The doorway framed Lea perfectly as he stood dead in the center of it, unprotected and staring dumbly at the chaos.

Isa rose to his feet, abandoning the shelter of the table when it became simply one of the many obstacles that separated him from Lea. Aeleus, carrying a patron in each arm, shouted, “Isa, _get down_!” which Isa responded to by taking one step forward, and then two immediate steps back, staggering as a fast sharp _something_ struck his face. He gripped the edge of the table, half-bent, stunned and trying to blink his way back to reality. For a few merciful seconds—long enough to believe that maybe it wasn’t as bad as it seemed—he felt nothing.

And then he felt pain, hot and wet and spreading quickly across his face.

His last sight of the brawl was Braig pinning someone’s head down on the countertop and wrestling a broken bottle from their hand. Isa’s knees hit the floor, followed by a horrible dripping sound, a viscous splatter on the hardwood. He would have fallen further if it weren’t for the broad hand on his chest, supporting his weight with ease but struggling against his sudden lack of coordination and balance.

“Isa, can you hear me? Don’t move.”

Isa complied through his sheer inability to do anything else while Aeleus reached up to the table with his free hand. “Hold still,” he said hurriedly, hardly giving Isa a chance to brace himself before he pressed a fistful of paper napkins to the gash. Isa cried out at the sudden friction, lighting up pain receptors that he had never wanted to be aware of. They multiplied with each heartbeat that Isa could now feel in the center of his face, pushing more blood into the wad of napkins in Aeleus’s palm. The pain was so sharp that Isa saw it when he shut his eyes, a bright X burning through the darkness.

He was amazed at how much he could still see and feel, desperately clinging to consciousness and yet praying that he would pass out soon. Aeleus removed the napkins to wipe at the blood threatening to trickle into Isa’s eyes, every gesture a source of agony. It was almost a relief when he paused to say, “Lea, hold on—Lea, _the glass_.”

Isa locked onto the word _Lea_, while Aeleus, with infinitely more situational awareness, knocked a chair over to prevent Lea from sliding right onto the broken bottle. It barely slowed him down, and as he rounded the chair and knelt by Isa’s side, Aeleus said, “Go find some more napkins, or _something_, these are soaking through like—”

Lea was already at work on Isa’s vest, nimble fingers undoing every button. With no other way to help at the moment, Aeleus held his arm out in front of the pair, instinctively shielding them from the brawl. Somehow, Lea managed to tug Isa’s vest down his arms, bundling it up and bringing it to his face. “Isa,” he said, quietly but intensely, “hold this.”

Isa lifted his hands a few inches before they started shaking. “He’s in shock,” Aeleus said as Isa senselessly tried to get to his feet, slipping in a puddle of beer and blood. His head sagged as both Lea and Aeleus steadied him, and more blood dripped onto his shirt. Isa watched the red sink through the fabric, sticking it to his skin, and found himself deeply regretting his decision to wear white that evening.

He finally pulled himself together enough to hold the vest to his eyes, but he reached out again in blind panic when he heard Lea say to Aeleus, “I’m gonna bring the car around; get him to the door.” His footsteps faded into the crowd before Isa could catch him, and it was Aeleus’s hand that found its way into Isa’s grasp instead. His palm was warm, padded with muscle and fat and calluses, but Isa squeezed it in such a vice grip that he swore he could feel bone.

He realized that Aeleus was speaking to him, placing his free hand on Isa’s back and gently but firmly guiding him to his feet. Isa went weak-kneed, not trusting himself to be able to cross the floor, but Aeleus stayed close to his side. He kept himself between Isa and the crowd and led him one semi-blind step at a time, inaccurately but encouragingly saying, “Almost there,” every few feet.

The cold wind snapped its jaws at Isa when Lea came back inside. Isa heard him say, “—driving him there right now. Just be ready for us at the door,” as he ran to the coat closet, and Aeleus used every ounce of his grounding, calming presence to guide Isa away from his husband and into the frigid night air.

Isa was vaguely aware of being buckled into the passenger seat while Lea layered both of their coats over him. “To slow the bleeding,” Aeleus explained as he reclined Isa’s seat a few notches. “But don’t let him pass out.”

“I got it,” Lea said, already behind the wheel, and with a rushed, “Good luck—drive safe,” Aeleus shut the door and let them go.

Lea avoided as many traffic lights as he could, and he gave stop signs only a cursory glance. He looked over at Isa every few seconds, watching his chest rise and fall shallowly, his breaths quick and strained. “You awake?” he asked, and Isa’s head dipped briefly in what could have been a nod, though Lea needed more than that. “We’ll be there soon, but you gotta stay awake, Isa. You might have a concussion.” Isa squeezed the vest even tighter in a white-knuckled grip, and Lea cursed himself for not knowing more about head injuries. What good was being the child of a nurse if you couldn’t remember basic first aid?

“Hey,” he said when Isa’s breathing went quiet. “Can you hear me?”

“_Yes_,” Isa grit out, startlingly lucid. “I can _hear_ you, Lea. Stop making me talk. This kills.”

Lea nodded, afraid to speak again, even to apologize. When Isa’s hold on the vest weakened, Lea reached over to keep it against his face. Isa seethed in pain and grabbed Lea’s wrist to stop him, but when Lea tried to pull his arm back, Isa refused to let go. In spite of Aeleus’s order to drive safely, Lea wrenched his wrist free and took Isa’s hand. It was sticky and warm with blood, but freezing underneath, and Lea felt as if he were holding onto the essence of Isa himself: iron and ice. He didn’t say a word, and he let Isa squeeze his hand a little too hard until they finally reached Radiant Garden General Hospital.

A team of medical professionals was waiting at the door to bring Isa inside. Lea knew they couldn’t make him walk with a head injury, but he wasn’t prepared for the emotional gut punch of watching Isa be helped onto a stretcher and whisked away down sterile white corridors. Lea followed him as far as he was allowed, and he tried to go farther, undeterred by protests until a nurse finally planted her hand on his chest and pushed him back through the double doors. “Sir, you _need_ to stay in the waiting room until the doctor comes to get you. You can fill these out in the meantime,” she added, handing him a pen and a clipboard full of medical forms.

She disappeared through the doors, leaving Lea mindblown at the fact that sitting around while his husband had his face sewn back together could be summed up with a term as mundane as “the meantime.” He tapped the clipboard against his leg as he paced around the room, eventually restricting himself to a corner when the receptionist glanced at him one too many times. He clicked the pen restlessly, ceasing that repetitive habit as well when another visitor cleared her throat. He was running out of ways to vent his frustration when he heard a familiar set of footsteps approach, and he turned around, already feeling like a kid again before he even saw his mother’s face.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Catherine said as she wrapped her arms around his neck, standing on her toes to do so. Lea hugged her back and muttered, “Where _were_ you?” still burning from the sight of a group of complete strangers wheeling Isa away on a stretcher.

“I’m sorry,” Catherine said again, rubbing his back briskly. “There was another emergency right after you called; I had to take care of it.” She gave him a once-over as he clung to her, pausing at the blood on his shirt. “Are you okay?”

Lea shook his head, burying his face in her shoulder and hugging her tighter, and she continued to rub his back in silence, soothing away the tremors as soon as they arose. After a few minutes, he let go so he could wipe his eyes. “Can you get an update or something from them?” he asked, chastened by the amount of times he’d been professionally but aggressively redirected to the waiting room.

“I will,” Catherine promised, “in a little while. Let’s just let them work for now.” She rubbed his back again, then took the clipboard and handed it to the receptionist, telling her that they’d fill it out later. It took some convincing, but she managed to get Lea to leave the waiting area so she could change into new scrubs and give him a clean shirt to put on, sealing the bloodied one in a plastic bag. He wandered out of the bathroom dressed half in his own clothes and half in medical garb, feeling like he had one foot in the grave, but admittedly more comfortable in the plain, sea green T-shirt.

When Catherine asked if Isa would have to worry about filing a police report, Lea assured her that in addition to the multiple security cameras, there had been plenty of eyewitnesses at the club. “_I _might have to, though,” he said, finally acknowledging the throbbing in his hand as he held it up for her assessment. “If the guy I punched remembers to press charges, anyway.”

Catherine took his hand gently, unable to hold back a sigh when he winced. “I guess some things really don’t change, huh?” she said. Lea managed a watered-down smile, only for it to fall worse than before.

“Some things do,” he said. “I wasn’t fast enough this time. He got hurt.”

Catherine put her hand on the side of his face, thumbing away his tears as soon as they fell. “Lea, c’mon,” she said. “The worst is already over.”

“He’s in _surgery_ right now.”

“I know every person in that room. They’re taking excellent care of him, I promise.” She took Lea’s wrist and raised his hand, once again bloody-knuckled on Isa’s behalf. “Now let’s take care of you.”

The damage wasn’t as bad as either one of them expected. What seemed to cause Lea the most pain was removing his wedding band, especially when Catherine said that his hand was too swollen for her to safely put the ring back on. “Just a little hairline fracture,” she said, sounding satisfied as she cleaned and dressed his knuckles. She affixed a brace and offered some painkillers, which he refused. “Have you eaten?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Not what I asked.” Lea gave her a flat look, but she gave him a stern one right back.

“I wanna stay close in case there’s an update.”

“I have my pager,” Catherine said, taking the device off her hip to show him. “I told them my son is in surgery. They’ll contact me as soon as they can.”

Lea didn’t look like anything would convince him that it was okay to leave, but Catherine didn’t look like anything would convince her to let him stay. So, like a fussy child, Lea grudgingly allowed himself to be taken down to the cafeteria. The most he was willing to accept was a bag of chips and a cup of tea, which he barely touched until his mother insisted. He took a few sips, feeling the warmth coming back to his chest, and he realized just how cold he’d been.

They ate in silence until Catherine’s curiosity and concern got the better of her. “Did you see who did it? I mean, was it someone you knew—like a regular, or…?”

Lea shrugged, struggling to open his bag of chips with only one good hand until Catherine did it for him. “I don’t know,” he said. “I was in the back when it started. The whole place was brawling by the time I got out there—it could’ve been anyone. I didn’t even—I mean, I was _looking_ for him, but I couldn’t even find him until it happened.” Catherine nodded sympathetically, and Lea looked like he really didn’t want to say it, but after a moment, he added, “Ma, there was so much blood.”

“Face injuries have a tendency to look worse than they are. And if he has a concussion, it’s likely to be mild. We have a good team here. They’ll take care of him.”

“How long will he have to stay?”

“I don’t know for sure. At least until tomorrow. Probably one more day, just to be safe.”

Lea nodded, letting her take his good hand while he rubbed his eyes with the back of his wrist. “Can I stay at your place tonight?”

“Of course,” Catherine said, an unbidden memory of him suddenly surfacing: five years old, clutching the edge of her mattress, eyes shining in the dark, and begging to sleep in her bed to hide from a nightmare. She squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back before letting go.

“I just…I can’t go back to that apartment without him.” He poked the stirrer around his bland cup of tea, as if there were anything left in it to dissolve. “I haven’t slept alone in almost ten years.”

“I know. Your bed should be all set; I just did the laundry a couple days ago.”

“Thanks,” Lea said, not quite feeling better, but feeling a little calmer. At least until he said, “Oh, shit,” and started searching for his phone, cursing again as he clumsily stuck his hand into one empty pocket after another. “Hey, can I borrow your phone? I need to make a call real quick.”

“Sure,” Catherine said, passing him her cell while she cleared the table and brought the dishes and trash to the kitchen. Lea punched in the number he knew by heart, eternally grateful that Demyx, despite his happy-go-lucky personality, was reliable enough to keep the same phone number he’d had since he was fifteen. He was even more grateful when Demyx answered no later than the second ring.

“Miss Q?”

“Dem, it’s me.”

“Dude, oh my god, what’s going on? Is Isa okay? One second he was there, and the next time I looked, you guys were gone. Oh my god. You’re at the hospital, right?”

“He’s okay,” Lea said, knowing it was true but feeling like he was lying. “He’s, um…I don’t know. I guess he might have a concussion, and…his face is, like…”

He trailed off, pinching the bridge of his nose to keep from losing his composure entirely. “I dunno,” he admitted again. “He’s in surgery now. I’ll text you when I know more than that.”

“Sure, sure. Just glad you guys made it. You’re okay too, right?”

“Kinda broke my hand, but yeah. Are _you_ okay? What the hell’s happening over there?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good, I’m good. The police are here. I guess one of our regulars called them as soon as the fight started. Most people high-tailed it out of here, though.”

Lea felt a jolt of anxiety. “Did anyone get away? The guys who started it, I mean?”

“Oh, no. We got ‘em. Well, Dilan and Braig did, anyway.”

“Are you sure? I don’t wanna have to go back in there, wondering if every person I see—”

“Lea, seriously. They got ‘em. I mean, I was behind the bar for most of it. I don’t even remember seeing the fight start. All of a sudden people were grabbing each other and glass was breaking, and then Braig fucking dragged me over the counter. I had to check and see what was going on, though. And holy shit, man…I can’t even describe it.”

“…can you try?” Lea asked, suddenly craving a distraction, and almost hoping to hear that even one person was having a worse night than he and Isa were.

“_Dude_,” Demyx began, “it was _insane_. Dilan and Aeleus were handling crowd control. Braig was corralling the guys who started it, making sure none of them slipped out, right? And when Isa got hit…I mean, we were all worried about him, obviously, but it was the principle of the thing, too, you know? Like, you see one of your own get hurt, and you just kick it into overdrive. Braig was already fighting dirty, no surprise there, but Dilan just went no holds barred. It was almost scary to see them working together for once. Someone actually tried to rush Dilan—I dunno what he thought _that_ was gonna accomplish, but Braig tripped the guy about halfway there. Another guy threw a shot glass—Braig _caught it_ and threw it _back_. One of the dudes who started the fight tried to make a break for it, and Dilan hurled a fucking _chair_ at him.”

“Jesus,” was all Lea could say. All of this must have been happening around him while he’d tended to Isa, but he couldn’t remember a single moment of it. “Did anyone else get hurt?”

“Aeleus has some glass in his arm. Just a few little pieces, nothing major. Dilan’s fine. Braig, um…he left a while ago. He was trying to give a statement to the police with Dilan, but he kept holding one of his bar rags on his face, and when the police finally made him show them, they sent him straight to the hospital. I think one of them escorted him there personally.”

“What happened to him?”

“I dunno, I didn’t see. I don’t even know _when_ it happened—I was only a few feet away from him for the whole fight, and I don’t remember him stopping or slowing down at all. But the looks on the officers’ faces…it was like he shouldn’t have even still been walking around and talking. I dunno.”

Lea frowned. “He was probably in shock or something,” he said, trying to be helpful, but unnerving himself even more at the idea of Braig, of all people, being affected by shock. “Isa was the same—he kept trying to stand up, like he didn’t even know what he was doing.”

“Geez, man,” Demyx said, and Lea could just see him running his hand through his hair. “Well…I mean, I’m gonna try to get in touch with Braig tomorrow, just to see how bad it is. But everyone else is fine. The place is trashed, but Dilan said he’d call Marluxia and explain everything once the cops peace out.”

Whatever had been pressing in on Lea’s chest became suddenly weightless, and he took a deep breath for the first time in hours. “Good,” he said. “Good. Well, um…hey. Are you heading out soon?”

“Yeah, in a bit. Aeleus is taking off now to get his arm looked at, so it’s just me and Dilan here. We’re gonna clean all the glass and shit before we close. Why, what’s up?”

“Would you mind stopping by my place after? I’m staying at Ma’s tonight, so if you could just hang out with Thorn for a while, make sure she gets fed and goes outside—”

“Oh, yeah, for sure,” Demyx said, eager to put Lea’s mind at ease, an impossible task that everyone nevertheless seemed to be taking upon themselves tonight. “Want me to stay over? I still got a key somewhere, I think.”

“That’d be great,” Lea said, finally feeling a bit of genuine relief. “Thanks, Dem.”

“No worries, dude. I’ll head over as soon as we finish up here.”

“Sounds good,” Lea said, seeing his mother approaching with her pager in hand. “Hey, I gotta go. I think there’s some news.”

“Okay. Call me tomorrow, all right?”

“I will. Love ya.”

“Love you too, man.”

Lea got to his feet, and Catherine raised her hand to slow him. “He’s out of surgery,” she said, accepting her phone back, “but they’re still observing him for signs of concussion.”

“Can I see him?”

“Let’s meet with the doctor first.” When Lea’s frustration mounted again, she added, “You’ll be able to see him soon. I promise.”

Lea clung to that promise like it was all he had. They went upstairs together and met the doctor in the entryway of the emergency ward to review Isa’s charts. The most Lea could glean was that they had successfully stitched up the lacerations on Isa’s face, and while there didn’t seem to be any internal bleeding, he had sustained a mild concussion, and they would need to keep him for at least one night—but more likely two—to monitor him and make sure no complications developed.

“Can I see him?” Lea repeated, aware that he sounded belligerent at best and obsessively stupid at worst, but not caring about anything other than the answer to his question.

“Yes,” the doctor said, her tone even but cautioning. “We gave him a mild sedative for the pain. He probably won’t be responsive, but you can go in until visiting hours end—about fifteen minutes.”

Catherine thanked the doctor and guided Lea to Isa’s room, but she let him enter alone. There were two other patients in the dim room, separated from each other by plain, slightly creased curtains, and Lea crept quietly to the middle bed, finding Isa fast asleep in it.

His face, despite the crisscross of bandages, looked relaxed. His eyes were shut, untroubled by dreams, and his lips were slightly parted, letting slow, steady breaths in and out. One hand rested on his stomach, and his other arm was at his side. He was sleeping soundly—even more soundly than he did at home in his own bed, Lea thought.

There was a chair, but Lea refused to sit in it, preferring to remain standing and pretend that there was anything useful or productive he could do. His hand itched to reach out and touch Isa, but he was afraid it would break the illusion that he really was all right. He settled for fixing Isa’s hair, making sure it was out of his face and not clinging to the bandages. When he finished, he spent the rest of his visit combing his fingers slowly through the strands, a self-soothing gesture more than anything else.

It had always been one of their most common displays of affection. Lea had done it constantly when they were teenagers, as a silent encouragement for Isa to continue growing his hair out. He’d done it for at least a solid half hour on their wedding night, with Isa in his arms, when Lea’s brain was still reeling too much for him to join Isa in sleep. But even when Isa was unconscious, he’d still been somehow responsive. Not aware, but present.

Now, it was like he’d gone away, trapped in an artificial rest, and as much as Lea didn’t want to leave his side, he felt as if Isa weren’t even there with him. When a nurse poked her head in to issue the five-minute warning, Lea said he was on his way out. He waited until she was gone, then leaned down, placing a kiss gently on top of Isa’s head, promising that he’d be here tomorrow, and telling Isa that he’d better be, too.

Catherine was waiting in the hallway, right where Lea left her. She had finished up the forms and handed them to the doctor, who bid them both good night before leaving to tend to her other patients. “Ready to head out?” Catherine asked, rubbing Lea’s arm comfortingly. “I’ll be another hour, but you don’t have to stick around.”

“When can I come back?”

“Visiting hours start at nine.”

“When can _I _come back?”

Catherine gave him a sympathetic but reproachful look. “Lea, the rules exist for a reason. Everyone needs rest, especially Isa. We’ll come back at nine.”

Lea nodded wearily, finally accepting that in the real world, the power of love wasn’t quite enough to override standard hospital protocol. Catherine hugged him again. “I’ll check on him at the end of my shift,” she said quietly. “Go home. Ice your hand. Get some sleep. Everything will be better in the morning.” Lea returned the hug halfheartedly, and with a brief but warm kiss on the cheek, Catherine sent him on his way.

The wind had blown over Radiant Garden and continued northward, leaving the streets dark and quiet, as if the entire town knew what had happened at Higanbana and was trying to be on its best behavior for the rest of the night. When Lea pulled into his mother’s driveway, he gathered the coats from the passenger seat and almost missed Isa’s vest, crumpled in a tiny heap on the floor mat. With a sigh, he picked it up and brought it into the house, figuring he might as well let it soak along with his shirt.

He put a plastic freezer bag over his hand to keep the bandage dry and scrubbed the vest under the faucet. It took a few rounds, but soon the water ran mostly clear, and Lea filled the sink and let the vest soak while he did some extra cleaning to pass the time. He hung their coats up by the door and threw his shirt away, not willing to spend any more time or energy trying to salvage it. He checked the toaster tray and, predictably, found that it was full of crumbs, which he dumped into the trash on top of his shirt, still sealed in its plastic bag like evidence from a crime scene.

When he ran out of twenty-second chores and figured the vest had soaked for long enough, he returned to the sink. The water was encouragingly clear—there was only a slight, dingy tint, which could have easily been mistaken for nothing more than mild rust. For the first time that night, Lea tried to let go of his worry and remind himself that the worst had already happened, and it hadn’t even been as bad as he’d thought.

He reached into the still water, and when he grabbed the vest, a cloud of red bloomed from it. Lea stared, his hand disappearing as the water turned opaque in seconds. He managed to unplug the drain and run the faucet again before he dropped his head to his arm, leaning on the counter like it was the only solid point left in the world, letting the steady stream of water do its work while he finally cried as hard and as long as he wanted. By the time he finished, the water was running clear again. Lea plugged the sink, filled it one last time, washed his right hand as thoroughly as he could, and left everything where it was as he went upstairs to Isa’s old room. He only took his shoes off before getting under the covers, figuring the hospital scrubs were suitable enough pajamas. He wrapped the blankets around him, took his wedding band out of his pocket and slid it onto his right hand, and hugged Isa’s pillow to his chest as he closed his eyes and fought a losing battle with sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gotta works those canonical scars into the story somehow! If you could just suspend your disbelief and pretend that a broken bottle could make a perfectly symmetrical X across someone's face, I'd really appreciate it.


	9. Pathetic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters: Vanitas and Naminé.  
More blood and injuries and all that fun stuff.

Vanitas ran against the wind. One side of his sweatshirt flapped behind him, but the other was pinned tight between his arm and his torso, keeping his hand safe. It was the only part of him that felt warm as he forced his way through the stormy night.

He knew he should have just kept running, especially when he rounded the corner onto Naminé’s street. But he was on such a roll this evening, he thought, as he entered her apartment building and treaded up the narrow staircase. Why not try to break his old record for most bad decisions made in a single day?

He knocked on Naminé’s door and waited. When she approached from the other side and asked who was there, Vanitas said, “It’s me,” hoping that she recognized his voice, usually low and laid-back but now tight with adrenaline. After a brief pause, he heard the locks being undone, and Naminé opened the door. She’d obviously been getting ready for bed, dressed in fleece pants and an oversized T-shirt, and covered modestly by, of all things, the sweatshirt Vanitas had left behind a month ago.

Suddenly, his hand started to hurt from the glass. His shoulder hurt from shoving the door open when he escaped from Higanbana. His neck hurt from when his assailant had him in a headlock. And his chest hurt for reasons he didn’t want to think about.

Naminé regarded him with cautious concern. Her gaze darted all over, ticking every tiny thing that was off about him. “What’s going on?”

Vanitas gingerly took his hand out from the confines of his sweatshirt, feeling ashamed of what a mess it was—some of the blood had already dried, staining his hand three different shades of red—and guilty for putting a look of horror on Naminé’s face.

She reached out to him, only to draw her hands back again, overpowering her own instincts. She stood aside to allow Vanitas into her home, and he tried not to take it personally when she glanced up and down the hallway before locking the door again. “It’s nothing, really,” he said, hoping she would take his words at face value and ignore all evidence to the contrary.

“Go sit on the couch,” Naminé replied, already on her way to the bathroom. He did as he was told, swiping some paper towels from the kitchen and soaking up as much of the mess as he could. He was still trying to get comfortable when she returned with tweezers, alcohol wipes, cotton swabs, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and bandages, setting all of them down on the coffee table. Vanitas didn’t realize that he’d been waiting for her to join him on the couch until she took a seat on the floor, across from him.

Naminé instructed Vanitas to hold his hand out, and he rested it on a folded up square of paper towels on the tabletop. She cleaned the tweezers with an alcohol wipe while he got situated, but when she reached down with no hesitation and no warning to pluck the glass out of his palm, Vanitas’s arm jerked back a few inches. “Vanitas, hold still.”

He tried, but when she reached down again, his hand curled halfway closed, instinctively trying to protect itself. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Look, just give me the tweezers. You shouldn’t have to do this.”

Naminé stared, obviously seeing straight through his bravado, but she handed the tweezers over without a fuss, playing along as he accommodated her non-existent squeamishness to cover up his own. It took him a couple tries to even grab the glass, wincing and letting go as soon as the metal tip of the tweezers brushed against it. He finally buckled down when Naminé held her hand out, offering to take the tweezers back, and once he actually pinched the glass, he was able to grit his teeth and slide it loose. He exhaled, audibly relieved as he laid the bloodied items down.

Satisfied, Naminé took another paper towel, dampening it with warm water and dabbing the dried blood off Vanitas’s hand. The pain was tolerable without the glass as a focal point, though when Naminé shook some peroxide into a cotton swab, Vanitas felt his arm tensing up again. He used his good hand to force the injured one flat.

The peroxide sizzled as she dabbed it around the edges of the cut, and Vanitas hated that both of his hands were occupied, leaving him to try and blink away the tears. Luckily, Naminé stayed focused on her task, and as he acclimated to the soft bubbling pain, his tears dried before they fell. She cleaned the wound diligently and wrapped a roll of bandages around Vanitas’s hand, still mindful not to make any physical contact herself.

When Naminé had finished dressing the wound and started to gather the supplies, Vanitas tried to help, but she insisted that she had it covered. So he stayed where he was, lightly curling and stretching his fingers while she brought everything back to the bathroom and kitchen. When she returned, she finally sat on the couch with him, keeping her distance now that she had nothing left to do. Vanitas tried not to fidget; he didn’t like the stillness or the silence, but he liked breaking them even less. To both his relief and anxiety, Naminé was the first to speak up.

“I was already in bed when you knocked on the door.” Vanitas blinked, not expecting the non-sequitur.

“Sorry.”

“I was trying to draw, but I couldn’t come up with anything. Just an off night, maybe. I don’t know.” Vanitas nodded. “Sometimes, when I hit a roadblock, I stop and do something totally different. I just sit in bed with my phone and see what movies are playing, catch up on the news—stuff like that. Local things, mostly.”

Vanitas kept moving his head, trying to nod away the sinking feeling in his stomach.

“It’s a bad habit. They say looking at screens late at night messes up your circadian rhythms or something. Plus, reading the news when I’m anxious usually just makes me _more_ anxious. Sometimes even the local news stresses me out too much to sleep. Tonight, especially. I found myself scrolling through headline after headline about a situation downtown, in the entertainment district. At one of the clubs.”

There it was. Self-loathing was nice enough on its own, but it really was incomplete without an outside source of shame. Naminé had been staring down at her lap, but now she looked up at Vanitas. “What were you doing there?” He shrugged. “No, Vanitas. What were you _doing_?” She pointed at his hand. “How did this happen?”

He heard her disapproval cut through her concern with ease. “I wasn’t doing anything. Some guy started a fight, I got dragged into it for a few seconds, and then I got out.”

“Have you gone there before tonight?”

“Yeah,” he said, figuring there was no point in lying now, even if he could bring himself to do it. “A couple times. It’s an okay place, I guess. I know a guy who plays music there.” Technically true, though Naminé looked unconvinced. She scrutinized Vanitas and kept her guard up so well that she was impossible to scrutinize back, like a living one-way mirror.

After a long and deeply conflicted moment of deliberation, Naminé finally asked, “Have you seen Marluxia?” And underneath it, Vanitas could hear the real question: had Marluxia seen _him_?

“No,” he answered honestly. And then he asked, “Why?”

“…excuse me?”

“Why do you ask? I mean, why would it matter if I saw the club owner at his own club?”

Naminé stared at him, and then, very quietly, she said, “I told you not to.”

Vanitas felt something puncture him, deeper than any glass could go, but he made himself push back. “You haven’t really told me anything.”

“What are you _talking_ about?”

“Come on,” Vanitas said, hearing himself get too defensive, knowing he was about to ruin everything. “That day he showed up out of nowhere, you were practically shaking. I’ve never seen a person look like that before.” For the first time since they’d met, Naminé almost glared, and the sight didn’t discourage Vanitas as much as it convinced him that they were finally getting somewhere. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“A lot,” Naminé said, in a very blunt and open swerve that he hadn’t expected. “There are a lot of things I don’t tell you, because I don’t have to tell you everything. I don’t _have_ to tell you _anything_.”

“I know that. All I’m trying—”

“I mean, you’re really doing this right now?” she went on, rising a notch above her quiet anger. “You didn’t even call. You just show up with _glass_ in you, and I sit here and clean your hand, and that’s still not enough? Now I’m supposed to talk about—I don’t even know what—just because you asked?”

“Look, I’m sorry,” Vanitas said, drawing back emotionally but leaning forward physically, trying to bridge the rift he knew he’d created. “Naminé, seriously. I’m sorry.”

“What do you even think is going on?” she asked, awfully bent on discussing it for someone who claimed not to want to discuss it. “You saw him _one time_, and now you’re on some crusade or something? Marluxia raised me. He gave me food, and clothes, and shelter, and work. And now you’ve decided that this is—what, a little project for you?” Her voice took on a more pleading tone as she added, “All I asked you to do was stay away from him. That’s _all_.”

“I’m sorry,” Vanitas repeated, desperate for her to see that he was. “Look, I fucked up. I know that. I get it—”

“No. You don’t.”

Vanitas paused, struck down into silence as her own arguments ate themselves. One second she insisted that there was nothing to worry about, and the next she insisted that he couldn’t even understand the depths of it. They sat on the couch, staring at each other, not sure where else to go—not sure where they’d already gone. A current had swept between them, pushing them five feet apart for every foot Vanitas managed to swim back toward her. As he stared at Naminé and saw how much trust had disappeared from her eyes—months of it, gone in a single conversation—he finally stopped fighting the current, letting it carry him out to sea.

“Okay,” he said, sounding anything but. “Well…it’s late. I’ll head out. Sorry about all this,” he added again, holding up his hand. Naminé nodded, and he rose from the couch to see himself out, berating himself for jumping ship at the first sign of turbulence. He’d been perfectly fine with going to art shows and getting take-out and playing stupid games together, but when things got a little too real, he bailed.

_Or really: you show up, dump all your shit on her, and when she finally calls you out on it, you ditch_, he corrected himself bitterly. _Fucking class act_. He was just reaching for the door when Naminé said, “Vanitas, wait.”

He paused with his hand outstretched, curled around the doorknob without grabbing it. With a quiet breath and even quieter hope, he turned around, truly wanting to hear whatever she was about to say, even—_especially_—if it was to call him out further, knowing how much he deserved it. But she said nothing more than, “Here,” as she took his sweatshirt off and held it out to him.

Vanitas stared for a few seconds before slowly, heavily, taking it back. He left before she could say anything else, unsure if she had any more parting words to give him, and unwilling to hear what they may or may not have been. He only made it a few blocks before he took an abrupt turn into an alley, slumping against the brick wall, little rust-red flakes clinging to his shoulder as he lowered his head to his hand, finally alone enough and angry enough with himself to cry.


	10. Collateral Damage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters: Lea, Isa, Catherine, Aeleus, Dilan, and Demyx.

When Lea awoke, he realized his mother had lied. Nothing was better. Everything was worse, because his hand hurt, and there was no wet nose and wagging tail prompting him to get out of bed, and when he automatically reached for Isa, he remembered they had both spent the night alone.

Worse yet was the realization that he’d overslept. He had planned to get up by eight-thirty so he could arrive at the hospital by nine. It was nearly ten. As he dragged himself out of bed, he heard the shower running in his mother’s room, and his frustration spiked at the fact that she hadn’t bothered to wake him. He changed into whatever clothes he could find in Isa’s old dresser, then went downstairs to wait.

Catherine walked into the kitchen ten minutes later, looking surprised to see Lea. “Hey,” she said on her way to make coffee. “Didn’t realize you were up.”

“We’re late. Let’s go.”

“Slow down, Lea. Have something to eat. And maybe take a shower.”

“Are you kidding? Like this is a normal fucking day?”

“I called his doctor first thing this morning. He’s doing fine.”

“Is he awake?”

Catherine rubbed her eyes, failing to stifle a yawn as the coffee dripped. “He’s woken up a couple times, yeah. But he’s still tired. _I’m_ still tired, frankly. It was a long night.” When Lea didn’t budge, Catherine said, “Look, if you won’t listen to ‘mom advice,’ then here’s my professional opinion. ER patients are in a vulnerable place already. They don’t tend to be reassured when their loved ones show up looking unkempt and distressed.” She put some bread in the toaster and added, “I’m not gonna make you do anything. But what I _am _going to do is have breakfast and put on a real outfit before I head out. I suggest you take a shower and at least grab something to eat on the ride over. If you can stand waiting around for me to drive you, anyway.”

Having shared all her available wisdom, she turned her attention to her food. Lea stood in the doorway, part of him still itching to go, but most of him yielding to his mother’s tried-and-true advice, his shoulders slumping as he headed back upstairs.

After making himself look moderately put-together, and admittedly feeling a little better as a result, he went downstairs again. Catherine was waiting by the door with his coat, a travel mug of coffee, and a bagel, and Lea accepted all three with humbled gratitude. As they went to the car, he wondered why he put up so much resistance to following her advice. Whenever he bent to her rules, she indulged his whims, rewarding his faith in her judgment by meeting him halfway.

They didn’t speak much on the drive to the hospital. Catherine let Lea eat his breakfast in peace, and Lea gave her a break from his worry manifested as anger. She brought him directly into the recovery ward through a side entrance, but they barely stepped inside before a swarm of hospital staff called Catherine’s name, begging her to help with the filing or misplaced charts or a slew of other problems that apparently only she could solve. Lea watched as the younger nurses and receptionists—hardly any younger than him—had the gall to look relieved when his mother wearily agreed to help, as if they were the ones going through a crisis today.

He suppressed the urge to tug on her coat impatiently like he’d done so often as a child. Catherine told him to go ahead and see if Isa was awake, promising to join him as soon as she could. She followed her coworkers to the reception area, unwinding her scarf as she tried to make sense of their barrage of questions and concerns, and Lea continued down the hallway alone.

He counted the doors and stopped at the fourth one, peering through the window. It seemed some of the patients had been shuffled around, and Isa now had the room to himself. The top half of his bed was at a slight incline, and he lay in it with his eyes closed. Lea entered the room and shut the door silently, holding onto the doorknob so he could keep his hands behind his back. The only thing he’d wanted to do since last night was talk to Isa, but watching him now, Lea just wanted to let him sleep for as long as he could. But he dredged up his selfish streak and quietly said, “Hey.”

Isa stirred and opened his eyes slowly, blinking in the hospital light. It took him a minute to focus, and Lea wondered if he had even heard him, or if he just happened to wake up at that moment out of sheer coincidence. But Isa finally glanced toward the door, turning his head without lifting it off the pillow. When Lea raised his right hand in a stilted wave, Isa blinked again and said, “Hi.”

Lea put his hand down, and after a few seconds of feeling very adrift, he asked, “Does your face hurt?”

Isa didn’t respond, and after waiting an appropriately inappropriate amount of time, Lea quietly added, “‘Cause it’s killin’ me.”

Isa continued to stare, his deep blue eyes gazing out from white bandages. Then he closed them and turned his hand over on the mattress, palm up, silently beckoning for Lea. He went to Isa’s side immediately, pulling a chair up to the bed, its feet squeaking on the linoleum and almost drowning out Isa’s voice as he muttered, “Dick,” under his breath. Lea laughed awkwardly as he sat down, taking Isa’s hand.

“Sorry. You know hospitals make me nervous.”

“I know. I, for one, am having a wonderful time.”

Lea squeezed his hand. “You been awake long?”

“I have no idea. I don’t even know what time it is. I’m only eighty percent sure I know what _day_ it is.”

“It’s the day after, uh…yeah.”

“I assumed,” Isa said, clearly but slowly, as if the words needed time to form in his mouth before he spoke them. He tried to sit up so he could converse on the same level as Lea, but he settled for just getting more comfortable instead. “The doctor came in…maybe around seven? She told me that my husband and my mother visited for a few minutes last night, while I was asleep.”

“Would’ve stayed longer, but they kicked me out.”

“Well, you didn’t miss much.”

“I missed you.”

Isa’s expression softened, as much as it could with his eyes still a little glazed and his face wrapped in bandages. He ran his thumb over the back of Lea’s hand comfortingly, though after several passes, he noticed something amiss. He paused on the wedding band, studying it intently and trying to figure out which hand he was holding. “Why…is this here?”

“What? Nothing. I dunno.” Isa stared, and Lea, not even having prepared a lie to pathetically commit to, sighed and held up his left hand, still bound and braced. Isa’s gaze fixed on it, and Lea could see him trying to piece together the fragmented memories he had from the previous night.

“What happened? You got hurt?”

“It’s nothing. Practically a sprain. The brace is just ‘cause—I mean, you know Ma.”

“Lea.”

“…so, I kinda…I dunno. Punched a patron in the face, I guess.” When Isa continued to stare, Lea rushed to reassure him. “It was crazy. I think the guy just saw a moving body in the crowd and made a grab at me, so I…yeah. But for what it’s worth, it sounds like no one’s pressing charges. Probably would’ve heard by now if they were. So that’s good. And I _know_ we have policies against assaulting the clientele. Just figured there were extenuating circumstances last night.” He fiddled with the brace despite constantly reminding himself not to, shrinking under Isa’s gaze. “So…you gonna put me on probation again?”

“…I’m giving you a raise.”

Lea snorted. “Yeah. That’s the morphine talking.”

“It absolutely is not.” Isa let go of Lea’s right hand and slid his fingertips under the injured one instead, where the bandage didn’t cover. “All these years,” he said, both admonishing and admiring, “and you’re still throwing punches.”

“All these years, and I still don’t know _how_.” Isa shifted his hand under Lea’s, and despite the pain, Lea immediately tried to return his hold. But Isa gathered Lea’s fingers together, lifting his hand and pressing his lips softly to the bandage.

Lea went still, frozen in place as if he were fifteen years old again. When Isa murmured, “Slugger,” against his knuckles, he let out a quick laugh, his voice hitching in surprise. His smile lasted a moment before it crumbled, and he lowered his head to his arm on the hospital bed. Isa managed to slip out of Lea’s weakened grasp to run his fingers through his hair, and Lea tilted his head into his touch immediately.

For a few minutes, Isa continued working his fingers through Lea’s hair, coaxing his stress and sadness out so he could soothe it away. Eventually, he asked Lea if his hand hurt, and Lea shook his head, rubbing his eyes as he sat up again. “Nah,” he said, trying to overcome his sudden swell of emotion with casual confidence. “Barely fractured it. You should see the other guy,” he added with a little laugh. “Always wanted to say that.”

“Well, some lucky patron got to go home last night and say it about me.”

“Oh, no. They all got arrested.”

“…really?” Isa asked, with a trace of hopefulness in his voice.

“Really. It was pretty wild, according to Demyx.”

“You heard from him? Is he all right?”

“Literally not a scratch on him. Said he hid behind the bar the entire time.”

“Smart.” Isa tried to sit up again, automatically waving away Lea’s help until he remembered where he was and why he was there. “He could stand to share his luck with us once in a while.”

“No kidding,” Lea said, rearranging the pillows and helping Isa recline against them. “But he’s paying us back. I slept at Ma’s last night, so he stayed at our place to keep Thorn company.”

For the first time that morning, Isa’s face truly brightened, relief spreading clearly across it. “Good,” he said, exhaling the word. “Good. Are you going home today? She shouldn’t go too long without seeing at least one of us.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” Lea hesitated. “Did it sound like…I mean, did the doctor say anything about how long you have to stay here?”

Isa shook his head, then closed his eyes, the pain or the dizziness impeding him. “No. Or maybe she did. I was a little out of it this morning.” Lea nodded, keeping a lid on his disappointment. They sat quietly for a minute, Lea running his fingertips gently up and down the back of Isa’s hand, until Isa asked to borrow his phone. “I have to call Marluxia,” he explained, and Lea slid the phone right back into his pocket.

“I’m gonna go ahead and chalk that one up to the concussion.”

“Somebody has to let him know what happened.”

“Somebody did.” Isa looked puzzled, and Lea couldn’t help smiling. “What, you think you run the place all by yourself? Dilan called him and explained everything. He really stepped up last night, according to Demyx. You should hear the things he told me.”

“Such as?” Isa asked, craving more news to cheer him up. Lea sat forward in his chair, eager to relay the action-thriller-slash-superhero version of last night’s events, but he only made it through two sentences before the door opened. He glanced over his shoulder to greet his mother, and his face reddened as the same nurse who had repeatedly shoved him back into the waiting room the night before now wheeled a breakfast tray in. Lea turned around quickly to hide his face, as if his hair weren’t his most identifying feature, visible from a mile away.

“All right,” the nurse began, treating Isa with a familiar and beleaguered tone. “I know they say the third time’s the charm, but I can’t let you refuse food more than once. Think you’re up for it?”

“We’ll see,” Isa replied, eyeing the plain tray of toast and applesauce and eggs warily. “I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to get down.”

“Just do what you can. And let me know if you feel nauseous—it could still be the concussion.”

Isa nodded carefully while Lea craned his neck to look at the tray. “Geez, I’d get nauseous too if I had to eat that.” At a pointed stare from the nurse—Aerith, according to her name tag, pinned to an anachronistically pink and white dress—Lea averted his gaze and mumbled, “Just kidding.”

“Is there anything else I can do for you?” she said, somehow asking Isa genuinely and Lea threateningly with the same bright tone.

“I’m all right,” Isa replied. “Thank you.”

She nodded, and after shooting Lea a very precise smile, she left. Isa waited until the door swung shut before he said, “I know that smile, Lea. I’ve given it to customers at every job I’ve ever had. Stop bothering her.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lea said, nudging the tray closer to Isa. “I stand by my claim, though. The food here sucks. I’m gonna get you a real meal for dinner. Anything you want—just name it.”

“Surprise me.” Isa picked up the dish of applesauce, and Lea quieted down to let him eat. Just as he finished the last spoonful, the door opened, drawing their attention once again.

Catherine stepped inside, looking even more harried than the last time Lea had seen her, though she visibly relaxed when she saw Isa. “Oh, good,” she said with a smile. “You’re up.”

“Relatively,” Isa said, trying to sit up further. She went to his side and found the controls for the bed, raising the incline, and once he was situated, she leaned down to hug him as best she could. He reached up behind her to return the embrace, and she rubbed his upper back at an awkward angle before letting go, though she stayed close, brushing his hair out of his face carefully.

“Oh, Isa,” she began, as if she were chiding him. “I hate to say it, but I’m starting to think you’re cursed, kiddo.”

“Don’t I know it,” Isa said, already sounding a bit more like his usual self. Catherine tried to let him finish his breakfast in peace, but he found himself fielding one question after another in between bites of toast. He assured her that he’d slept well, and that he had enough blankets, and that—aside from occasionally feeling his pulse between his eyes—the stitches didn’t hurt much. “They said the healing process will be tricky, though. And we can expect some…pretty distinct scarring. So that’s fun.”

“There’s a lot that can be done these days,” Catherine said. “The stitches won’t be in for long, and they’ll give you a balm to help minimize the scars.”

“Besides,” Lea chimed in with a small smile, “I told you: nothing could ruin your pretty face.”

Isa didn’t smile back, lightly touching the bandage below his eye. “Yes, well. That remains to be seen.”

Catherine gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze, and the three of them sat together while Isa impressed everyone, himself included, by clearing the breakfast tray. While Catherine rolled it back to the door, he asked, “Did you see the doctor?”

“I did, briefly.”

Isa nodded, and despite his matter-of-fact tone, nothing could keep him from sounding like a child when he asked, “When can I go home?”

“Soon,” Catherine promised, joining him at the bed again. “They want to keep you one more night, just to be safe. We like to err on the side of caution with head injuries. The concussion was pretty mild, though, all things considered. I know it sounds a little…well, a little fucked up. But the fact that the glass shattered is a blessing in disguise. If a bottle hits you that hard and doesn’t break, it usually means something else did.”

“Are you saying I have a thick skull?”

“I’m saying your skull did its job, wise guy,” Catherine replied, ruffling his hair. “So let it rest for another day where we can keep an eye on you.”

“Fine by me. Lea keeps saying I’m overdue for a vacation anyway.”

“Like hell this is your vacation,” Lea muttered, but Isa was already getting comfortable, determined to use his medically-sanctioned period of rest and relaxation to the fullest. The three of them stayed together until Catherine had to return to her coworkers, departing with a light kiss on top of Isa’s head and a promise to stop by later. Shortly after, Lea said he should probably head home to check on Demyx and Thorn, which Isa agreed was a good idea.

“Tell her I miss her,” he said, “and that I love her, and I’ll be home soon, and that she’s the best dog in the world. And tell Demyx he can help himself to the fridge.”

“They’ll both be thrilled,” Lea laughed, putting his coat on. “When should I come back? I can bring dinner anytime.”

“Take as long as you want. I’m going to try to sleep for a few hours.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” He leaned down and kissed the top of Isa’s head, but when he tried to right himself, Isa kept him in place with a hand on his shoulder. He stared up at Lea, his gaze subconsciously drifting down to his lips, then back to his eyes. After a moment of deliberation, Lea bent down again and gave Isa the most careful kiss of his life, still afraid to get close to any part of his bandaged face, let alone touch it. But Isa slid his hand behind Lea’s neck and kissed him more firmly, and when they separated, Lea kissed his cheek, if only to prove to himself that it was okay. He was encouraged to find that Isa’s skin was no longer shockingly cold like the night before, just mildly cool as always.

“I love you,” Lea said, his voice barely above a whisper.

“I love you,” Isa replied, much more steadily. Lea adjusted his bed and made him promise to get some rest, and after giving Isa one more brief kiss, he left.

He managed to track his mother down to see if she’d need the car anytime soon. “All yours,” she said, ignoring a disastrously disorganized filing cabinet so she could dig her keys out of her pocket. “This is turning into less of a day off by the minute. Figured I might as well clock in and get—I dunno, five hours? At least?”

“Still sounds like a day off for you,” Lea muttered. He took the keys, mollified by her generosity and her agreeable tone. “Thanks. And hey, sorry I’ve been kind of flipping my shit for the last…fifteen hours or so.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’re looking better,” she remarked. “Feeling any better?”

“Yeah. Just needed to see him, y’know? Talk to him.”

“I know,” Catherine said, rubbing his back. “How’s he doing?”

“All right, I guess. He’s gonna try to take a nap while I’m gone. Oh, and I’m bringing dinner later, so let me know what you want. No vending machine meals tonight.”

It both amused and disheartened him, how much her face lit up. “God,” she said as she hugged him, as if he’d offered to buy her a new car or house. “I love you, kiddo.”

“Love you too, Ma.”

* * *

Lea didn’t realize just how much he missed home until he stepped inside, comforted by the mere sight of the familiar couch, the coffee table, the television. He called Demyx’s name, but when there was no answer and Thorn didn’t come running, he figured they must have gone out for a walk. As badly as he wanted to see them both, he was relieved to have the apartment to himself for a while to decompress.

He tried to relax, changing into more comfortable clothes and digging through the fridge for leftovers. He’d just finished scraping his lunch onto a plate when he heard the front door open, followed by the jingling of dog tags. Lea approached the family room, almost smiling when Demyx told Thorn how good she was at walks and asked her if she wanted to try out a different route next time. When Lea reached the doorway, Thorn’s gaze lit on him, and she went from mildly happy to wide-eyed, tail-wagging _thrilled_. Demyx took a little longer to notice, and he responded to Lea’s casual wave by jumping, laying a hand over his heart, and saying, “Dude, oh my god, oh my _god_.”

“Surprise,” Lea said, belatedly and sarcastically. He crouched down to greet Thorn, and she whined and stuck her tongue out in tiny flicks, trying to kiss his face but too excited to focus. After giving her a few scratches under her chin, Lea rose to his feet again, hugging Demyx once he calmed down. “Thanks, Dem.”

“Thank _you _for giving me a fucking heart attack,” Demyx said, though he hugged Lea back tightly. “When did you get here?”

“Ten minutes ago, maybe. Just came back for a pit stop, change of clothes, that kinda thing.” He rubbed Thorn’s head until she went back to Demyx, nudging his jeans with her nose, unable to contain her excitement.

“Yeah, I know,” Demyx said, laughing at her enthusiasm. “Dad’s here.”

Lea smiled and held his hand out for Thorn again, but she passed him and went to the kitchen instead. “Probably smells the food,” he said to Demyx, dropping his hand. They listened to her paws click on the kitchen tile, but when the sound was muffled by the bedroom carpet, Lea realized with a sickening rush that she was looking for Isa. She returned to them quickly, still wagging her tail in dumb, innocent excitement as she searched the family room, because the idea that she’d somehow missed Isa in their relatively small apartment was more plausible than the idea that Lea had come home without him.

“Aww…” Demyx said, picking up on what Lea had already figured out. “It’s okay, sweetie. Your other dad’ll be back soon.” He lowered his voice, as if she could understand what they were saying, and asked Lea, “He’ll be back soon, right?”

“They’re gonna keep him one more night.” Lea scratched Thorn’s chin again to assuage his own guilt, rubbing his eyes tiredly with his free hand. “Hey, you hungry? I can heat up the rest of the leftovers if you want lunch.”

Demyx, always hungry, took him up on that offer, sensing Lea’s unspoken but clear desire for company. He brought his plate to the armchair, and Thorn—after another sweep of the apartment—settled beside Lea on the couch, laying her chin on his leg. Despite her growing confusion, her tail thumped happily against the cushions while they ate.

“So, how’s he doing?” Demyx asked while Lea stirred a spiral into his food. “Is he…I dunno. Awake?”

“He was a little groggy; they had to give him a ton of painkillers and stuff. But he’s awake. He just needs to rest until the—uh, lacerations heal.”

“Damn, dude. That sucks.”

“Yeah. It does.” Lea took a deep breath and sighed, drawing Thorn’s attention. He looked down at her and gave her a light noogie when she started to wag her tail. “She seems good, though. Thanks again, by the way. When I told Isa you were taking care of her, that was like, the only time he actually looked happy.”

“Don’t even mention it. Thorn’s a dream to dogsit, aren’tcha, puppy?” he asked when her ear perked up at the sound of her name. Demyx smiled as she laid her head back down, then he glanced at Lea. “How’re you holding up?”

“Me? I’m just super,” Lea replied, his sarcasm coming out more deadened than deadpan. “Honestly, I don’t know. I woke up feeling like shit, and then Ma made me feel a little better. Then we got to the hospital, and I felt like shit. But the longer I talked to Isa, the better I felt. And now I feel like shit again.” Lea put his empty plate on his lap, letting Thorn lick its surface clean. “I just want him to come home.”

“Yeah…” Demyx frowned, trying to put himself in Lea’s shoes. “Well, you just gotta get through one more day. And the worst part’s over, y’know? He’s in the safest place he can be right now.”

Lea nodded vacantly, wanting to appreciate Demyx’s attempt at comfort but already knowing that he was about to ruin it. “I keep telling myself that. But it’s like…he wouldn’t _need_ to be somewhere safe if he hadn’t gotten hurt in the first place. And yeah, the worst part’s over, but it still sucks. He’s gonna have the stitches for a week, and even after they come out…” He put his plate on the floor, relocating Thorn so he could rest his elbows on his knees and his forehead in his hands, massaging his fingertips into his hair. “Everything’s gonna be different.”

Demyx couldn’t have seen the first tears fall, but he got off the armchair anyway and joined Lea on the couch. He rubbed Lea’s back gently, and Lea bowed his head a little more, the tears sticking to his eyelashes. When he finally wiped his eyes and sat up straight again, he spent a few minutes leaning against Demyx, complementing the emotional support with physical support. “Would you be cool with staying here one more night?”

“Yeah, of course,” Demyx said. “Won’t catch me complaining about staying somewhere with a full-sized fridge.” He nudged Lea’s shoulder until he got a weak smile out of him, then took both of their plates to the kitchen. They spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out on the couch, until Lea got a text from his mother saying that she’d need the car back in about an hour.

“All right, guess I’m shoving off,” he said as he hauled himself off the couch. He grabbed his coat, bracing himself for a round of pitiful whines from Thorn when she realized he was leaving. Instead, she trotted up to him eagerly, wagging her tail, once again unable to conceive of the possibility that anything was wrong, that Lea _wasn’t_ putting his coat and shoes on so he could take her out for a walk.

Back when they first adopted her, Isa had tried to explain how her happiness sometimes made him feel worse than her fear or sadness. “Even after everything she’s been through, she still believes in the best,” he had said. “We’ll never be able to live up to how much she wants to love and trust us.” Lea had been sympathetic, but bewildered, ultimately filing it away as one of those bittersweet feelings Isa often had that Lea was blessed not to understand.

He understood now. Every fiber of him wanted to leave immediately, to rid himself of the sight of Thorn looking so happy and—not even hopeful, he realized, because in her mind there was nothing she needed to hope for. He made himself get down on one knee and scratch the sides of her face, eventually holding her still and pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

“That’s from Isa,” he said quietly as she tried to lick his face. “He misses you, and he loves you, and he wants you to know that you’re the best, prettiest, sweetest dog in the world.” He managed to hold her still again and give her another kiss, adding, “That’s from me. And I’m sorry.” He gave her a few more scratches behind her ear, and then, with another quick hug from Demyx, he was gone.

* * *

The next morning, there wasn’t much for Lea to do but wait for Isa to be released. Rather than sit around his mother’s house, he drove downtown, looking for a way to keep busy. He wasn’t surprised when he ended up parking by the curb outside Higanbana, and he was even less surprised when he went inside and saw Dilan at the bar, restocking the shelves.

Lea tried to enter as unobtrusively as possible, the noise of the door overshadowed by the sound of glass bottles being removed from their cases and quickly lined up on the counter. But Dilan looked up when he felt a cold breeze waft in, and he nearly did a double-take when he saw who had arrived. “Oh,” he said, placing the next bottle down slowly. “Hi.”

“Hey,” Lea said, waving wryly with his injured hand. “How’s it going?”

“Good, good,” Dilan said, dusting his hands on his jeans and leaving the bottles for a moment to give Lea his full attention. “There are a few minor repairs to take care of, but overall, this place took less damage than it could’ve.” After a brief pause, he added, “We weren’t expecting you back so soon.”

“Well, it’s not like I’m here to grace the stage,” Lea replied, getting a chuckle out of Dilan. “Just figured someone should check in with you guys. And Isa’s not gonna be able to for a while, so…”

“How is he?”

“Eh…y’know. Recovering.” Lea tried to put his hands in his pockets, realized that one of them wouldn’t fit, and settled for resting his thumbs through his belt loops instead, his attempt at casualness only making him look more fidgety. “He’s being discharged this afternoon, but I have some time to kill before then. You guys need any help here?”

“Sure, if you’re up for it. I don’t think you’ll hear either of us complaining,” Dilan added as Aeleus finally joined them from the back, carrying a case of Pumpkinhead cider to replace the copious bottles that had been spilled or shattered. As he set it down on the counter and took an empty crate from Dilan, Lea noticed the clean white bandage wrapped around his forearm.

For a while, the three of them milled around the club without speaking. Lea couldn’t tell if Aeleus and Dilan didn’t want to talk about what had happened, or if they—like him—were just trying to figure out how long they should dance around the subject before their avoidance came across as weird instead of tactful. Eventually, Aeleus asked Lea if he needed to give his hand a break, and Lea replied that his hand had already gotten one. Aeleus chuckled, Lea asked how his arm was doing, and the gates of conversation swung gently open.

Overall, Lea didn’t hear much from them that he hadn’t already heard. When he relayed the supposed action hero version of the brawl, Dilan rolled his eyes. “Demyx has a gift for exaggeration.”

“No argument there,” Lea said. “But I believe him. Looks like we’re a chair short in here, which would account for the one he said you threw at a patron. ‘Scuse me—_former_ patron.”

“I…may have crossed a professional line there.”

“Well, I think you get a pass in this case.” Lea tried to straighten out a bar stool before finally admitting that no amount of fine-tuning could fix the dent in the metal pole. “Hey, uh. Thanks, by the way. Demyx said you guys really handled things here, especially after Isa was…y’know, just that you guys really stepped up when shit hit the fan.”

“It’s no problem,” Dilan replied. “It’s the job, after all. And to be fair, Braig deserves a third of the credit.”

“Yeah. Shit. Has anyone heard from him?”

“Demyx tried to get in touch with him yesterday,” Aeleus said. “He might still be in the ER, but no one has any news, as far as I can tell.”

“Was he…how bad was he? Dem made it sound pretty horrific.”

“It was bad,” Dilan confirmed. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen an officer go from professional to horrorstruck that fast. Not that I have much experience with the police. But it wasn’t pretty—even for Braig.”

“Shit,” Lea said again. The three of them trailed off into an oddly respectful silence as they went back to work. Lea rummaged in the tool box, mumbling to himself about how the whole stool would need to be replaced. After loosening three of the screws from its base, he glanced up and saw both Dilan and Aeleus watching him. “…what?”

“Nothing,” Dilan began. “It’s just…I don’t think we’ve ever seen you do anything useful around here.”

“Wow.”

“Maybe ‘practical’ is a better word,” Aeleus suggested.

“I’m serious,” Dilan said, ignoring him. “If you aren’t onstage, then you’re basically comatose on the break room couch.”

“Hey, I’m more than just a pretty face around here. I mean, I’m no pro, but home repairs, car maintenance, minor plumbing jobs, stuff like that I can handle. I have to, anyway,” Lea added, struggling to pry the stool loose until Dilan came around to help. “Isa’s hopeless with this shit.”

Together they lifted the bar stool free from the floor, leaving a gap in the otherwise orderly row. After another hour or so of work, Lea ordered lunch for them all. They sat at separate tables, but on converging sides, giving Lea room to put his feet up on a second chair. Dilan was the first to finish his food, apparently approaching meals with the same efficiency he brought to most—if not all—aspects of his life. He gathered his trash from the table, telling the other two to relax and finish eating as he disappeared through the back door. Lea shook his head in amazement. “Nice to know Isa’s not the only workaholic in this place.”

“He’s been like that for as long as I’ve known him,” Aeleus said. “But he’s really taking up the mantle while Isa’s out. Marluxia wants this place up and running again soon, and I imagine Dilan will be taking on more of a management role for a while.”

“Well, we owe him a lot. And you, too. I’m sure Isa will tell you himself when he gets back.”

“How’s he doing?”

“Good. I mean…yeah. Good. Better. He’ll have the stitches for a week, but technically it’ll take a lot longer to fully heal. Months, I guess. And they said that because of where the injury is—I mean, you saw—it’s tricky. They can’t do much about it, at least not without, like…pretty intensive surgery. He said he’d rather just deal with the scarring than go through all of that. There’s no guarantee it would even work anyway, so…”

Lea trailed off, aware that he’d started to ramble, trying to convince himself that everything really was working out for the best. Aeleus drew him back to the conversation with his silence, as grounding as any words of comfort he could have offered. “Anyway,” Lea went on. “The concussion was mild. The doc said it might’ve been worse if we hadn’t gotten him to the hospital so fast.”

“He’s lucky you were there.”

“Man, all I did was drive. I didn’t even know what was going on half the time. I should’ve—” He cut himself off, backing away from that road before he went down it, and he sighed gently. “Y’know…part of me still feels like I should’ve gotten to him sooner. But I’m glad you were there first. It was just easier to deal with, knowing someone else had already taken charge, I guess.” He scratched the back of his head and added, “Anyway, thanks. For keeping him safe.”

“You’re welcome. I wish I could’ve kept him safer to begin with. But I’m glad he’s all right.”

“He is,” Lea said, marking the first time since this ordeal began that he felt like he truly meant it.

They finished their lunch, and Dilan returned with some files to see if he could arrange to have a new stool delivered. The three of them looked for odd jobs and small tasks to put the club back in order and their minds at ease, but when Lea checked his watch for the fourth time in two minutes, Dilan suggested they call it a wrap for the day. He and Aeleus sent Lea on his way, though not before making him promise to tell Isa that they said hi and hoped he felt better soon.

* * *

When Lea arrived at the now familiar hospital room, Isa was sitting on the edge of the bed, fully dressed and ready to go. Lea passed him his coat but put a hand on his shoulder to stop him from standing.

“This is completely unnecessary,” Isa said, though he grudgingly let Lea push him back down. “It’s not as if I’ve been confined to my bed. I took a walk less than an hour ago.”

“Really?” Lea asked, and Isa gave him a dry look, remarkably good at it even with the bandages obscuring half his face.

“It’s a cosmetic injury and a _minor_ concussion—which, frankly, hasn’t been causing me any problems since yesterday afternoon. I know the doctors are obligated to say otherwise, but I’ve been ready to go home for the past twenty-four hours.”

“Well, home’s ready for you, too,” Lea said, tapping Isa’s leg with the back of his hand until he made room for Lea to sit beside him. “But Ma’s gonna meet us up here. So just sit tight for now.”

Despite his restlessness, Isa cooperated, soothed by the knowledge that Catherine was on her way. While they waited for her, they had surprisingly normal conversations about the club and Demyx and Thorn, and how Marluxia was probably giving Braig a run for his money in the gray hair department by now. Lea relayed Dilan and Aeleus’s messages to Isa, and Isa told Lea to thank them in return, and both of them thought about how they couldn’t wait until things were back to normal and they could handle their own conversations without requiring constant middlemen.

When Catherine finally arrived, Isa wasn’t nearly as happy to see her as he’d expected. “Are you serious?” he asked, eyeing the wheelchair as she pushed it to the center of the room.

“I am,” she said, both apologetic and stern. “It’s standard policy, Isa. Just for liability reasons.”

Isa sighed quietly, finally leaving the hospital bed only to take a seat in the wheelchair. He tried to figure out how to settle in, folding his hands on his lap in an attempt to look composed, but simply making himself look more vulnerable and frail. Catherine moved away and said to Lea, “You wanna take the wheel?”

Lea stepped behind Isa, who gave him a wary glance. “_Can_ you?” he asked, nodding at the hand brace. Lea shrugged.

“Guess we’ll find out. Sorry in advance for running you into a wall.”

It was a long-anticipated but uncomfortable journey through the hospital. Isa avoided eye contact with everyone, and he rose from the wheelchair as soon as they were outside, hardly waiting for Lea to stop pushing. The two of them stood by the hospital entrance while Catherine went to bring the car around. Passersby gave Isa conspicuous but not unreasonable stares, and he maintained a cool demeanor, neither avoiding nor returning their looks. Lea had to fight the urge to pull Isa into an embrace and let him bury his face against his chest, his desire to protect Isa only overpowered by his desire to keep him from feeling like he needed to be hidden. Still, his relief was palpable when Catherine finally rolled up to the curb, as was Isa’s when he settled into the backseat.

When they returned to the apartment, it was empty once again. Despite Isa’s best efforts to prove that his recovery was a straight, linear progression, his head had begun to ache, and Lea brought him to their room to lie down for a while. Catherine kept herself busy by tidying the kitchen and family room. She was in the middle of organizing the coffee table when the front door opened and Demyx and Thorn stepped inside, both of them equally surprised and happy to see her.

“Hey, Miss Q,” Demyx said, struggling to hold onto Thorn’s leash as she squirmed in delight. “Didn’t realize you were coming over.”

“Yeah, figured I’d help Isa get settled in.” Catherine knelt on the carpet to greet Thorn, scratching behind her ear until she found the itchiest spot. “Hey, pretty girl,” she said, leaning back when Thorn tried to give her a kiss. She rose to her feet again with a quiet _oof_, rubbing her knees and finally giving Demyx a proper look. “Wow. Look at you,” she said, laughing incredulously and reaching out for a hug. “God, it’s been ages. You’ve gotta be as tall as Lea now.”

“Almost,” Demyx said, glancing past her as they separated. “Are they here?”

“Yeah, Isa’s just getting back into bed. But I’m sure he’s dying to see Thorn.”

Clearly, Thorn had been dying to see him as well. As soon as Demyx unhooked her leash, she trotted into the kitchen, already picking up on some familiar scents beneath the strange hospital smells. “Heads up, guys,” Catherine called. “You’re about to have a visitor.”

The words had barely left her mouth when they heard excited but distressed whining from the back of the apartment. Catherine and Demyx followed along and saw Isa sitting on the edge of the bed, trying to coax Thorn closer. She stood a few feet away, her ear up and her tail wagging, but the rest of her wary. When Isa said her name, it only confused her further, combining such a familiar voice with such an unfamiliar face. But he carefully lowered himself to the floor, sitting in front of her and beckoning patiently, just as he’d done on the day he first brought her home.

Thorn approached slowly, growling once at the bandages, though she eased up when Isa let her inspect them. Once she assured herself that it really was him, she whined more happily and licked his chin, as if to apologize for growling. Isa passed his hands over her face, then wrapped his arms around her neck, pulling her into a gentle hug. “Good girl,” he murmured, loud enough only for her to hear, and he released her with a quick rub on top of her head. He rose to his feet again and finally noticed Demyx, who was watching him with both relief and concern, almost as taken aback by the sight of the bandages as Thorn was. “Hi.”

“Hey,” Demyx said, uncharacteristically quiet. “How you feelin’?”

Isa shrugged. “Better than before.” He let Catherine fuss over the pillow arrangement as he got back into bed, and Thorn leapt onto the mattress immediately, pressing against Isa as she lay by his side. “Thank you for watching her, by the way. That was a load off my mind.”

“Yeah, no worries. Figured your brain could use a rest now more than ever.”

“You figured right.” Lea emerged from the bathroom with a glass of water for Isa, and the trio settled around the room, getting as comfortable as they could. Catherine got ready to head out, reminding Isa to text or call if he needed anything, though she expected she’d be visiting frequently either way. With another kiss on the top of his head, a quick hair-ruffle for Lea, and a promise to find time to catch up with Demyx soon, she left.

The three of them tried to keep the conversation light, but it wasn’t long before Isa wanted to know how things were going at the club and asked for another account of what had happened. “Well, I can’t say I ever wanted to see the police at work,” Demyx said with a nervous laugh. “But it was a huge relief once everyone got taken into custody. And you know Dilan. He hands out lifetime bans like they’re going out of style.”

“Which they never will,” Isa replied, closing his eyes and sounding deeply satisfied by the news. Demyx hedged for just a moment, not wanting to disturb the sense of calm they were trying to cultivate.

“Hey,” he finally began, “while we’re on the topic—you remember that new kid? Vanitas? Um, just so you know— I mean, he was banned, obviously, so moot point, I guess. But I saw the whole thing before it happened, and…I dunno. It looked like he started the fight, but he was just sort of dragged into it.”

“Okay, Dem,” Lea said quietly. “Not right now, huh?”

Demyx nodded, reminding himself as Isa tried to get comfortable that this might not be the most ideal time or place for that discussion. They continued to hang out until Isa’s capacity for conversation started to fade, and Demyx figured it was about time for him to get back to his own apartment, anyway. Lea walked him to the door and gave him a fairly tight hug, thanking him again for all his help before sending him on his way.

When he returned to the bedroom, Isa was leaning back against the pillows with his eyes closed, methodically running his fingertips over Thorn’s head. She had her chin on his lap, and her tail thumped against the comforter intermittently, a picture of utter contentment. Lea stood in the doorway for a few moments, letting that simple sight finally—for the first time in days—bring him all the way home. “So,” he said quietly, “anything in particular you want for dinner?”

“A shower.”

“Yeah, well, food first. Don’t want you passing out in there—you’ve exceeded your quota on head injuries.”

Isa smiled sardonically, too tired for an actual laugh. He welcomed a homemade dinner, especially since it allowed him to take another dose of painkillers, and he opted to take a bath when he realized how tricky showering would be without removing his bandages. Catherine had left a sizable roll of them int he bathroom so that Isa could redress his wound regularly, but for now, he soaked in a very indulgent bubble bath, changed into pajamas at the late hour of five p.m., and then went straight back to bed.

He, Lea, and Thorn spent the better part of the evening there. When Lea asked Isa how he was feeling—for real—Isa said his head was throbbing, even with the painkillers. Lea wrapped an arm around his shoulders, making Isa lean against him as Thorn leaned against Isa, like a row of toppled dominos. “Wanna hear something that might make you feel better? Besides the fact that about seven of our patrons got arrested?”

“Please.”

“Well, the club’s in good shape. Dilan and Aeleus are getting everything back on track. And according to Demyx, Dilan went _ballistic_ when he saw what happened to you. No holds barred. One of the guys tried to weasel out of there, and Dilan threw an entire chair at him.”

Isa paused, no doubt picturing the scene for himself. “I mean, damage to company property, I guess,” Lea went on. “But he totally incapacitated the guy. Made absolutely sure that everyone who started that shit got what was coming to them.”

Isa nodded, mulling this over. “Would you be upset,” he said slowly, “if, when I go back to work, I asked him to marry us?”

“I’m just upset it’s taken you this long.” Isa laughed a little, scooting down to give his head a rest on Lea’s shoulder.

“That does make me feel better.” He took a deep breath and let it out quietly. “Say more nice things.”

Lea lifted some of Isa’s hair with his fingertips, letting it fall messily over his shoulder again. “Well, Thorn’s not gonna let you out of her sight for a week, at least. Dilan’s handling your responsibilities at work, keeping the place running and dealing with administrative stuff.” He felt Isa relax against him, and although it was likely due to the painkillers kicking in, Lea kept going. “Let’s see. We’re gonna cash in some sick days, which means you’ll still have a lifetime supply of vacation days saved up. And, assuming I behave myself and actually wear this thing, I should regain the use of my hand in a week and a half—two weeks, tops.”

“I like the sound of that.” Isa let Lea run his fingers through his hair for a while, the two of them sitting together in a peaceful silence, before he said, “Hey. Say it again.”

“What? My hand’ll be better soon?”

“No. The first thing.”

“Ahh,” Lea said knowingly, sliding his arm around Isa’s waist. He kissed his cheek a few times, pressing his lips to the bandage as he worked his way back to Isa’s ear. He waited a moment to build suspense, and then, in his most enticing voice, he whispered, “_Lifetime bans_.” He laughed quietly when Isa actually shivered.

“_God_,” he breathed, leaning against Lea more heavily and closing his eyes. “I won’t lie…that almost makes this all worth it.”

“Seven down,” Lea agreed, resting his arm over Isa’s shoulders again. “A few hundred to go.”


	11. X-Face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters: Lea and Isa.

On Isa’s third day home from the hospital, Lea pulled a chair out for him at the kitchen table, set a breakfast plate down, and kissed the side of his head gently. As he took a seat with his own food, Isa said, “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?” Lea asked, scraping some eggs onto a corner of toast.

“Treating me like I’m made of glass.”

Lea chewed slowly, setting his food down and wiping his mouth as he swallowed. “You got hurt,” he said, stopping himself before he added _again_. “You’re gonna have to forgive me if that affects my behavior a little bit.”

“I understand that, but we’re adults now. I’m not waiting a month for us to go back to normal this time.”

“Yeah, well…easier said than done. I mean, imagine if the roles were reversed—how would _you_ be treating me if I were in your place?”

“However you’d want me to,” Isa said plainly, and Lea, unable to argue with that, finished his toast in a begrudging silence.

Five days later, Lea slouched in a chair at the doctor’s office, ankle on his knee and foot bouncing impatiently as he waited for Isa to get his stitches removed. When Isa returned from the examining room, he had a fresh set of bandages wrapped around his face. He guided a very confused and concerned Lea out the door, refusing to comment until they were in the car. “What’s up?” Lea asked, frowning as he pulled onto the main road. “She _did_ take them out, right?”

“Yes.”

“Was there a problem?”

“No. Everything’s healing correctly. It’s just a little sensitive to the cold.” They drove on in silence for a while before Isa added, “I don’t want the first time you see me like this to be in a waiting room.”

Lea nodded as he turned onto their street. “Gotcha.”

Thorn greeted them when they got home, enjoying the attention Isa lavished on her, blissfully unaware of what a convenient distraction she was. While Isa led her to the kitchen for a treat, Lea hung their coats up, promising himself that he wouldn’t broach the subject until Isa did.

He kept that promise so well that he had genuinely forgotten about it by late afternoon. When Isa appeared in the family room doorway, informing Lea that he was about to remove the bandages, he couldn’t possibly have caught Lea more off guard. “Oh. Yeah—uh, sure,” Lea said, looking back and forth for the remote. He shut the TV off while Isa sat beside him on the couch, quiet and composed. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, raised his hands to the bandages, then paused, looking Lea in the eye.

“Ready?”

“Not if you’re gonna keep making me nervous.”

Isa laughed, taking his point, and began unwinding the bandages. Lea watched attentively, knowing there couldn’t have been more than one or two layers, but still unprepared for how fast the process went. When Isa finally loosened the bandages enough to slide them off his head, he focused on coiling them neatly around his fingers, allowing Lea to experience the moment without scrutiny, or perhaps sparing himself the pressure of Lea’s scrutiny. Either way, it was a minute before Isa managed to meet his husband’s gaze.

He tried to sit still, but when he saw the way Lea was looking at him—carefully, not letting anything too spontaneous show—Isa raised his hand to his face. It unnerved him, how easily he could feel the scars. The doctor had said that the slight “ridge” was just the skin healing over and would recede in the coming months, but Isa already knew he’d spend a lot of time fiddling with it between then and now. It was the same compulsion that drove him to press on bruises, just to make sure they still hurt.

He traced one of the scars, just above his eyebrow, then dropped his hand again. “Well?”

Lea took his time, openly studying the scars before settling back on Isa’s eyes. “How do you feel?”

“Lighter,” Isa said. “Like my face can breathe again.”

“It still looks…I mean, does it hurt?”

“Not like before. It’s just…” Isa held his hand in front of his face, curling his fingers and straightening them out again. “Tight, I guess.” Lea nodded, trying to understand, and after an awkward silence, Isa said, “How do _you_ feel?”

“…are you serious?” Lea asked, as if he couldn’t believe that was Isa’s priority.

“Yes,” Isa replied, as if he couldn’t believe that Lea couldn’t believe that. Lea hesitated, then dropped his gaze.

“I dunno,” he said. “A little off. But okay. As long as you’re all right.”

Isa nodded, and they sat together for a few more minutes, not knowing what was supposed to come next. Lea glanced at the blank TV screen, then the window. “So…what do you wanna do tonight? You wanna go out? Stay in? It’s your call.”

“Right now? I just want to take a shower without worrying about stitches for the first time in a week.”

“Heh, fair enough.” Lea rose from the couch, stretching briefly and leaning down to kiss the top of Isa’s head. “Enjoy. I’m gonna get dinner started.”

Isa was in the shower for nearly forty minutes, depleting the hot water and, in Lea’s opinion, deserving every second of it. Even after the faucet shut off, it was a long time before he left the bathroom. Lea tried not to think about it, but his memories took him back to the last time he stood in the kitchen like this, preparing a meal at the stove while Isa lingered in the bathroom alone, adjusting to his new reflection.

Lea felt like the scars were all he could think about, but when Isa returned to the kitchen, he was still taken aback by the sight of them. He glanced up out of habit and tried not to stare, though looking away was even more conspicuous. As upsetting as the scars had been at first, the removal of the bandages had made the whole thing feel almost ceremonial. Seeing Isa in an otherwise normal context, casually dressed, at ease in his own home, with a red criss-cross dead center in his face, would take some getting used to.

“Staying in, huh?” he asked, taking note of Isa’s T-shirt and sweatpants.

“At the risk of cabin fever, yes,” Isa said, rubbing his hair vigorously before dropping the towel over his shoulders. He gestured to his own face, drawing his hand in a circle around it. “I need to get used to this before I go anywhere.”

They had the most normal evening they could manage, though conversation was a little stilted over dinner. It was easier when they adjourned to the couch to watch TV, taking some of the pressure off by facing the same direction instead of each other. Lea put his feet on the coffee table, Isa leaned against him, and Thorn dozed on her bed in the corner, her face twitching lightly with dreams. She had given Isa a careful inspection once the bandages were gone, and it took her roughly twenty seconds to decide that—as far as she was concerned—nothing significant had changed. It was a sweet moment that had left Lea feeling bizarrely envious, wishing it were that easy for him to adapt, too.

He tried to be mindful of boundaries, but after a couple sitcom reruns, he realized he was simply falling back into his old patterns. At the next commercial break, Lea reached up and slid his fingers through Isa’s hair, scratching his nails on the top of his head. He did it for longer than he intended, enjoying the tranquil look on Isa’s face, the same as always except for one new, glaring difference. When the commercials ended, Lea gently turned Isa toward him, taking his face in his hands and letting the TV fade into the background.

The room had grown dark, and while they were only inches apart, neither one of them could get a clear, complete look at the other. Lea wondered if that was why he had waited until now to do this. He brushed his thumbs against the tips of the scars, drawing them across Isa’s face as if he were wiping away tears, and Isa watched him with patient focus. Lea pressed their foreheads together, running his thumbs over the scars until Isa closed his eyes, and after a few more moments, Lea tilted his head and kissed him. He felt a pang in his heart at how quickly Isa responded, and at how long they’d both been waiting for even a hint of normalcy to come back to their lives.

They indulged in a series of long, slow kisses, savoring being able to do it again. Isa pulled Lea closer, and Lea slid his hands along Isa’s face and into his hair, his touch finally unobstructed by bandages. He tried to follow Isa’s lead, but his thoughts began to stray, taking him back to that night at Higanbana. Against his will, he recalled the sight of Isa staggering with blood on his face and shirt, and the subsequent few days that had put him through so much of the hospital experience alone. And a mere week later, here he was, trying to lean back against the armrest and bring his husband down with him, so ready to go back to normal—or ahead, to whatever their new normal was—that he was willing to walk away from such a horrible experience without a backward glance, leaving Lea struggling to keep up the pace.

Lea wrapped his arms around Isa tightly, managing to kiss his neck a couple times before he buried his face in it. With an accepting but disappointed sigh, Isa reached up and ran his fingers through the back of Lea’s hair, ruffling it out of place and consoling him like it always did.

It took a few more days for them to make what Isa considered to be real progress. As he was getting ready for bed, Lea lingered in the bathroom doorway, asking various questions about whether the scars still hurt, and how long it would take for them to be officially healed, and what the specific salve in his hand was for. Isa answered as patiently as he could, but his annoyance must have shone through. Lea eventually shut his mouth, giving Isa some peace and quiet at the price of mild guilt. After a moment, Isa glanced at him and held out the small container. “Would you like to help?”

Lea looked at the salve, then at Isa again, raising his eyebrows. “Yeah?” Isa shrugged, and Lea, a little more confidently, said, “Yeah. Sure.” He joined Isa at the sink, taking the container and reading the label carefully. “How much should I use?”

“Just swipe some on your fingertip.”

Lea did. “Now what?”

“Have you ever used moisturizer a day in your life?” Lea gave him an unamused look, and Isa added, “It doesn’t hurt.”

With a nod, Lea held Isa’s face in his free hand and gently worked the balm in, taking his time. Isa felt a little silly, standing there like a child who needed assistance with the most basic tasks. The salve did claim to help the scars fade, though he was sure its only real purpose was to prevent them from itching while they healed.

But physical comfort wasn’t the only kind they needed right now. And when Lea put the lid back on the jar and finished up with a forehead kiss, Isa reminded himself that he wasn’t the only one with a healing process to go through.


	12. Before The Monsters Get You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters: the Higanbana crew, plus a couple of special guests.

Halloween arrived with a crisp wind and brittle leaves that curled like parchment. By mid-afternoon, fake bats and orange streamers were strewn around Higanbana, and the seasonal drinks were fully stocked. Demyx lazed in a chair by the stage, strumming various horror movie themes on his bass until Lea correctly identified them. He was especially quick with the vampire movies, rolling the “r” in _Frrright Night_ for a bit of theatrical flair and to remind everyone how good he was at it. As usual, his attempts at showing off sent Isa fleeing to somewhere he could actually focus on work. He reminded Dilan to let him know when Marluxia arrived, then retreated to his rarely-used office.

When the front door opened, everyone sat or stood a little straighter to greet their boss. They froze when Braig entered instead, wrapped in his leather jacket and a scarf to keep out the cold, though he pulled the latter off as soon as the door closed behind him. Aside from the five o’ clock shadow and the enormous, serrated scar reaching up the side of his neck and face like a claw, he looked the same as ever.

“_Buona sera_, douchebags,” he said as he made his way to the bar. He spent a minute settling in, stashing his jacket and scarf on a lower shelf. When he hauled himself to his feet again and saw every one of his coworkers staring at him, he raised his eyebrows. “Damn, it really is Halloween. You guys are the living dead in here.”

He snapped his fingers a few times to jar them out of it, which Demyx replied to with a slow and intense, “Dude…what the _fuck_.”

“Hello to you, too,” Braig drawled. “Thanks for rollin’ out the welcome wagon.”

“When did you get out of the hospital?”

“Couple weeks ago.” At their collective look of surprise, Braig laughed. “What? I needed some R&R. Not like I was the only one,” he added, glancing at Lea. “The Lord and Master back on his throne yet, or are we still stuck with Marley?”

“He’s in his office,” Lea said, too stunned by the sight of Braig to snark back. Braig refocused on the bar, muttering in annoyance as he swapped bottles around and undid Dilan and Aeleus’s work. While he busied himself with putting everything in the “correct” order, the rest of them exchanged looks which—if the subject had been anyone but Braig—might have qualified as concerned. Finally, Dilan asked, “Are you…you know. Okay?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Braig said, and Dilan gave up, having known the bartender long enough not to bother him with trivial things like his health or general well-being. Lea went to let Isa know that Braig had arrived, and the rest of them worked quietly in the meantime, willing to play along for now and pretend everything was back to normal. Even Demyx pulled his weight, preferring to set up his equipment on the stage rather than remain in his chair and give Braig scathing looks from across the room.

When Isa came out to the main floor, Braig did a slight double-take, then dropped his hands and turned away. “You are _shitting_ me,” he said, shaking his head as he looked at Isa again. “Even your _scars_ are neat and tidy.”

Isa almost laughed. After weeks of feeling like people were tiptoeing around him, the gallows humor was a welcome change. “How are you doing?” he asked.

“Ehh. Fine, more or less. This wasn’t exactly my first rodeo.” Braig gave Isa a look and added, “You, on the other hand…”

Isa stopped himself from reaching up and touching his scars, trying not to let that self-conscious gesture become a full-blown habit. But Braig assessed the damage, and Isa felt oddly okay with it—even relieved when Braig gave him a satisfied nod.

“Not bad. Coulda been a lot worse. A few inches to either side, and you’d be saying sayonara to those baby blues.”

“A few inches to either side for you, and…well. You’d be dead, I assume.”

“A few centimeters, more like. But hey, story of my life. Look on the bright side: scars are a total dude magnet.”

“I’m married.”

“No shit. I’m talking munny here. I’m telling you, put a tip jar on your little podium by the door tonight, and just see what happens.”

“I’ve spent the past few years cultivating a personality that specifically discourages flirtation. That’s the last thing I need.” Braig shrugged, and after a moment, Isa added, “But if this is your obnoxious way of trying to give me an ego boost…I accept. And if it’s tips you’re concerned about, you might think about cleaning up a bit more. When’s the last time you shaved?”

“Had to break out the clippers for a while. There’s not a lot I can’t stomach, but I dunno…_something_ about putting a razor to my neck is just givin’ me the creeps lately.”

“Well, if it makes you feel better,” Isa began, surprised that that phrase was even coming out of his mouth in a conversation with Braig, “a few weeks ago, out of habit, I pinched the bridge of my nose.”

“Oh, man,” Braig said, laughing less at Isa’s expense than in a strange, shared commiseration. “How much did _that_ kill?”

“I ruptured a stitch.”

“…you know, not to sound like a dick or anything, but that _does_ make me feel better.”

“I expect nothing less. Or more.” Braig gave him a finger gun and went back to inspecting the glasses, separating the ones that needed extra polishing. Isa hesitated. “Just out of curiosity…how much of a bullet did I dodge?”

Braig stopped organizing for a moment. “Straight up?” Isa nodded, and Braig leaned against the counter, mulling over his answer. “I’ve literally had more injuries than I can keep track of. This one—” He tapped his finger just below his eyepatch. “—was unlike anything else. The pain’s one thing, but losing half a sense, just like that?” He snapped his fingers, and Isa heard the horrible finality in it. “Fucks you up. For good. Sucks what happened to you,” he added as he picked up a glass, “but be grateful that the worst you’ll deal with long-term are some pretty scars and an aversion to Skellington’s whiskey.”

“Is _that_ what I was hit with?”

“‘fraid so,” Braig said, laughing at Isa’s grimace. “No accounting for taste in this place.”

The rest of the preparations went smoothly. As the hours passed, so did the discomfort. The crew were even grateful for Braig’s familiar abrasiveness as he criticized their lack of costumes, demanding to know where their holiday spirit was. When Demyx challenged him, asking what the hell _he_ was supposed to be, Braig fanned his fingers over half his face and said, “Bet I’d make a pretty good Phantom of the Opera.” Demyx didn’t respond, unwilling to agree but unable to argue.

Braig went on to suggest ideas for the millennial trio, from the Three Stooges to the Three Musketeers. “Hell, you could pull off a ‘friends of Dorothy’ group costume easily. A little on-the-nose, but hey.”

“We did, back when we were kids,” Lea said, smiling at the memory. “And for the record? We were adorable.” While he and Demyx started to reminisce, Isa decided it was time for another location change. He abandoned Lea with a droll, “Back to work, Scarecrow,” and took his post by the door, trying to get used to standing there again before the crowd arrived.

The crew continued to brainstorm costume ideas while they did whatever passed as work until the doors opened. It was a time-killer more than anything else, as the real suggestions were shot down almost immediately. “Oh, this is gold,” Braig said. “Red Riding Hood and—”

Lea shook his head before he could finish. “Ran that one by him ages ago. Picked out a dress and everything. But he said there’s no way to do the wolf costume that isn’t completely stupid.”

Braig shrugged and went back to polishing glasses, at least until Demyx started to pluck a new tune on his bass. “Heh, nice,” Braig said, and while Demyx still wouldn’t look at him, he played a little louder. Braig nodded along for a few bars, then started singing in a suitably raspy voice, “_Hey there, Little Red Riding Hood—I don’t think little big girls should go walking in these spooky old woods_—”

“Braig,” Dilan said wearily, “you _have_ to stop. The last thing we need is the police showing up twice in one month.” Braig chuckled, but he complied, going back to work with nothing more than occasional humming.

As Lea helped Demyx set up his gear, he mused that those costumes might be easier to pull off than Isa realized. While Lea was the de facto star of Higanbana, he was far from the only employee with fans. He had lost track of the number of comments he’d heard about Isa, though his all-time favorite had come from a particularly drunk freshman, who had just been so desperate for his friends to understand—“No, man, I’m not, like, _into_ him. He’s just…so fucking _beautiful_. Like an Arctic wolf.”

That one had sent Lea fleeing to the break room, dangerously close—as thematically appropriate as it would’ve been—to howling with laughter. But he couldn’t deny the comparison, and as he helped Demyx carry some of the heavier equipment across the stage, he wondered if the scars would lessen the effect, as Isa seemed to assume—or, as Lea suspected, would only enhance it.

* * *

Holidays at Higanbana were always stress-inducers, and Halloween was often the worst of them all. But the crowd seemed to have gotten it out of their system early this year, and from the start of the evening, everyone stayed on their best behavior.

It was the employees who were making the atmosphere feel a little strained. Demyx hung out at the bar, occasionally giving Braig a hand with drinks, but mostly trying to interrogate him on where he’d been for the past few weeks. Braig brushed him off with his usual humor, but when he made one too many flippant remarks about almost nicking a carotid artery, Demyx snapped.

“Stop acting like this is cool, man. You could’ve died.”

“Didn’t, though.”

“Why didn’t you tell any of us what was going on? We had to hear it from Marluxia, and it took him, like, a week to let us know if you were even alive.”

“Pretty sure he had bigger things on his mind than keeping you all up to speed on the state of the bartender.”

“I left messages for you every day. You couldn’t have sent me one little text saying ‘not dead, kiddo, now buzz off?’”

“Woulda gone with ‘pipe down,’ myself.” When Demyx glared, Braig laughed. “C’mon. My first vacation in years, and you expected me to spend it playing phone tag?”

Demyx continued to glare, but not at Braig. He handed a glass over to be dried, and after a few minutes of mixing drinks and cleaning more glasses in silence, he asked, “What’s it feel like?”

“Itchy.”

“Yeah. The stubble probably doesn’t help.”

“Might keep it. We’ll see what kinda feedback I get from the crowd tonight. They go nuts for the rugged look.” Demyx was still eyeing the scar as if it might reopen at any moment, and Braig sighed. “Will you relax? If I can master stairs without an eye, I think I can handle re-teaching myself how to shave.”

Demyx didn’t look convinced, but he let it drop, cooperatively helping Braig with drink orders until it was time for him to return to the stage.

At the front door, Isa had his own hurdles to contend with. He had expected the double-takes and lingering looks, but he couldn’t quite manage to rise above them. He consoled himself with the fact that every conspicuous stare was followed by an averted gaze, his patrons as self-conscious about noticing his scars as he was about wearing them.

There wasn’t anything he could do about it except try to adjust. He was in the middle of studying his ledger, making sure Dilan and Marluxia’s entries from the past few weeks added up and trying not to be bothered by the inconsistency in penmanship, when a quiet, familiar voice said, “Oh. Hey.” Isa glanced up, feeling as surprised as Ienzo looked.

“Hi,” he said, and both of them paused, not sure who should speak next or what they should say. Ienzo ended up taking the initiative.

“I didn’t know you were coming back so soon.”

“I had to make sure no one was throwing any wild parties while I was gone.” Ienzo almost laughed, but he just kept looking at Isa, who added, “I’m honestly surprised to see you back here at all.”

“I wasn’t allowed for a while. It took a lot of convincing for my father to let me come out tonight.”

“I can imagine. I’m sure it’s jarring at best to see news reports about a violent outbreak at your son’s favorite haunt.”

“Who said this place was my favorite?” Isa snickered, appreciating and to an extent agreeing with the sentiment. “And actually…he heard it from Aeleus. After things quieted down, I guess. He called to make sure I wasn’t planning to stop by, and he let my father know I wasn’t here before he saw the news and started turning Radiant Garden upside-down.”

“Everyone really went above and beyond the line of duty, didn’t they?” Isa asked, mostly to himself.

Ienzo nodded, and after a moment, without any preamble, he said, “Does it hurt?”

His frankness was both characteristic and refreshing—no vague questions about how Isa was feeling or if he was okay, and no inane comments about how the scars “didn’t look that bad.” Even when Lea asked questions, there was always a hint of apology for bringing them up in the first place. Blunt curiosity made Isa feel like he was, for the most part, still a regular person.

“A little,” he admitted, rewarding Ienzo’s honest question with an honest answer. “I’m sure the migraines this place induces will do wonders for it.” Ienzo seemed satisfied with that response and asked nothing further, giving Isa a chance to look him over. “So, what are you supposed to be?” he asked, assessing Ienzo’s costume of jeans, sneakers, and a fairly nice but plain gray jacket.

“The nagging feeling that you’ve forgotten to pack something when you’re already at the airport.”

“Terrifying.” Isa tilted his head toward the rest of the club, giving the boy his stamp of approval and sending him on his way. He watched Ienzo bypass his usual table to meet up with Aeleus at the far side of the room. After a few minutes of catching up, Ienzo reached into the recesses of his jacket and produced a cheap Halloween headband, the kind with two antenna-like springs and a plastic jack-o-lantern bobbing at the top of each one. It was clearly meant to be a lighthearted joke, but Aeleus took the item, studied it inscrutably, and put it on his head without a hint of irony. Even from across the room, Isa had the pleasure of seeing Ienzo flounder for a moment, his sarcastic sense of humor thwarted by Aeleus’s complete lack of self-consciousness. He mumbled something before going to his usual table, and Aeleus gave the headband a little adjustment before resuming his security guard stance, a perfect blend of professional and whimsical.

Isa remained at the door for as long as he could, but the cold and the darkness set in fast. Normally, he’d stick it out a little longer, but the past few weeks of rest and recovery had lowered his tolerance for pointless suffering. He ended up retreating to a warmer part of the club, joining Lea at a quiet side table, to the latter’s surprise.

“Well, look who’s finally taking a break,” he said, pushing a chair away from the table with his foot. “’Bout time you learned how to do that.”

“I learned from the best.” Isa took his seat and leaned back, exhaling quietly. When Lea asked how he was doing, he said, “I’ll admit…I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed taking breaks until they were a medical requirement.”

Lea gave him an obligatory little laugh, but after letting Isa relax for a few moments, he said, “Seriously, though…how are you?”

Isa held back a sigh, feeling guilty for wanting a break not just from work, but from Lea’s constant care and doting. “I’m fine,” he said, meaning it. “I can’t say if the scars make me seem more intimidating or more pitiable, but either way, everyone’s been on their best behavior so far.”

“Yeah, well, it’s the early crowd. If you think anything’s gonna stop our regulars from being crass little fuckheads, you’re in for a rude awakening.”

“Maybe a tip jar is worth a shot, then.” At Lea’s confused look, Isa said, “One of Braig’s suggestions for the podium, which I’m considering taking him up on for the first time in history.”

“Man, you know better than to encourage Braig. Or our customers, for that matter. If you knew some of the things Demyx and I overhear around the stage…” Isa shrugged. “What? You don’t care?”

“I truly don’t.”

“It’s crazy. You never hear it ‘cause you hide out by the door, but once they’re inside, and they have a few drinks…I mean, you think Dilan has a horde of admirers? That’s nothing. And the worst part is how fucking embarrassing it is. The shit these kids say…I swear, even if you _were_ available, you’d be so far out of their league it’s not even funny.” Lea shook his head, boggling himself at some of the comments he was dredging up from his memory bank, but he paused when he noticed Isa watching him. “What?”

Isa looked him over, letting the realization sink in before he shared it. “I don’t believe this,” he said. “You’re _jealous_.”

“_No_,” Lea said, which was such a blatant, petulant lie that Isa had to stifle a laugh.

“Well, I doubt you’ll have to worry about anything like that tonight. Everyone’s been keeping their distance from me.”

“I’m sure they’re not.”

“You are.”

Lea looked away uncomfortably; he’d hoped it would’ve been less obvious. It was that balancing act again, the one he could never get the hang of. He wanted to return to their normal, everyday life, but he wasn’t sure how to do that without acknowledging what was different about it. And he didn’t know how to acknowledge what was different without making Isa feel scrutinized, ruining the point of going back to normal in the first place.

“It’s fine,” Isa said, letting conversation topics pass by as easily as he brought them up. “It’s an adjustment—for me as much as you.” He laughed a little self-deprecatingly. “Oddly enough, talking to Braig is what’s helped me feel the most normal about all this.”

“Well, you won’t find a better expert on scars, that’s for sure.”

“I certainly won’t find anyone who’s better at romanticizing them. The way he talks, it’s as if every injury is just an opportunity to add intrigue and appeal. The more life-threatening, the better.”

“Heh, to be fair, though—” Lea cut himself off quickly, realizing he was falling into that old childhood habit of speaking off the cuff, about to say something just a little too honest. But Isa had shared Lea’s childhood and knew that habit better than anyone, and he waited for him to finish his thought. Lea fiddled with an empty straw wrapper. “I mean, just—not to make light of what you went through or anything. I’m not trying to sound insensitive here. But the scars are, uh…pretty hot.”

Isa stared blankly, long enough for Lea to repeat what he’d just said in his head and realize that it definitely _did_ sound insensitive. And then, without giving Lea a chance to brace himself, Isa grinned. “Really,” he said, the word rolling out of his mouth in a satisfied tone. The combined effect of his voice, his expression, and the scars put a swooping sensation in Lea’s stomach.

“Yeah,” Lea managed to say. He could probably count on one hand the number of times he’d seen Isa grin like that before. There were genuine smiles that softened Isa’s face, but this one sharpened it. It was a smile like light caught on the edge of a knife.

He was spared the embarrassment of saying literally anything when Dilan called for Isa across the room. The smile faded, but the glint stayed in his eyes, always taking the longest to disappear. “Yes?” Isa responded, turning his head a few degrees toward Dilan but keeping his gaze on Lea.

“Marluxia just called. He’ll be here in half an hour, and he wants this quarter’s paperwork ready for review. Particularly the, uh, health inspection.”

“I’ll be right there.” As Dilan returned to his post, Isa finally looked away from Lea, drawing a deep, weary breath and letting it out in a sigh. He got to his feet, and without thinking, Lea reached out and caught his arm. Isa looked down at him, raising his eyebrows. “Yes?”

“Hey,” Lea said, already a little breathless. “Why don’t I get to see you smile like that more often?”

Isa gave him the most micro of microexpressions, but Lea had no trouble seeing that tiny trace of smugness on his face. “It’s for special occasions.”

“It’s a holiday,” Lea rightfully pointed out. “You gonna do it again anytime soon?”

Isa paused, then turned to face Lea, gently removing his hold on his arm. He rested one hand on the table and the other on the back of Lea’s chair, not touching him at all, but trapping him with sheer presence. Lea sat absurdly still as Isa leaned down, just close enough to ensure that Lea could hear him, and quietly said, “Make me.” He stood up again and went to his office, leaving Lea with a challenge as much as an invitation, and while Lea tried to get his heart rate back down to an appropriate level, he wondered if that wolf comparison was really as hyperbolic as it seemed.

* * *

Nine o’ clock came and went, and so did Isa’s apprehensions. The behavior on the dance floor was no worse than it was every year, and patrons were too caught up in their own dates and drinks and costumes to give Isa’s scars more than a passing glance. Some even said they looked cool, which—while tactless, and nowhere near as effective as Lea’s vote of approval—was still a nice confidence boost. Things were running so smoothly that when Braig said he needed to step away from the bar for a few minutes to restock, Isa willingly offered to cover for him.

He was nervous at first. It was one thing to greet the clientele at the door, and another matter entirely to hand them bottles and glasses. But he reminded himself that the reason the brawl had caught them all so off guard was because nothing like it had ever happened at Higanbana before, and the odds of it happening again were infinitesimal, especially so soon. Isa glanced at the bouncers, and he saw that—despite Ienzo having left over half an hour ago—Aeleus was still wearing the cheap Halloween headband, the two plastic jack-o-lanterns dancing above him with each turn of his head. Maybe he really was that sentimental, or maybe he’d simply forgotten it was there. Either way, Isa wasn’t about to draw attention to it.

He filled a few orders for Pumpkinheads while he waited for Braig to return. They were such a popular item that Isa mastered them in five minutes, a skill that would be utterly useless for the next 364 days. But for tonight, it was just the right amount of busy work to keep him occupied. The next order, however—“An Interdiction, please.”—gave him pause. It wasn’t the drink itself—although Isa had never heard of it before—but rather the voice that had requested it. It was magnetic, pulling Isa’s attention so smoothly toward the speaker that it was as if he were being drawn into a new gravitational field.

Isa wasn’t particularly short—he had always insisted to Lea and Demyx that he was of perfectly average height—but certain people made him feel smaller, and this man was one of them. He was nowhere near the size of Aeleus, or even Dilan, but there was something so…encompassing about him. His long hair was pinned back with several strands hanging by his face, not hiding it, but preventing Isa from getting a full look. He was dressed in a three-piece suit—odd for Higanbana at any time, but especially tonight. He hadn’t checked his coat, presumably because Isa wasn’t at the door to take it, and instead wore it over his shoulders like a cloak. He had a pair of soft leather gloves, but he was removing them in preparation for the drink that Isa had yet to begin making.

“An Interdiction?” the man repeated, and before Isa could say more than, “I—” he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“I’ve got it, boss,” Braig said agreeably as he moved Isa aside, and Isa allowed him to do it without protest. He muttered an apology when Braig had to reach around him for ingredients, stepping back to free up the counter. Once he got some distance, Isa glanced up again to find that the man was still looking at him, calm and mildly curious.

When Braig offered the drink, the man accepted it with a delayed nod. He held the glass up to examine it, evoking the image of Dr. Jekyll with a beaker full of chemicals before downing the concoction. He swirled the remaining half in his glass, regarding both men equally.

“Are you having a pleasant Halloween, gentlemen?” he asked, and Isa nearly laughed at the non-sequitur.

“Ehh,” Braig said with a shrug. “Can’t complain.”

“I see.” The man appraised each of them, lingering on their respective scars, and added, “It appears things have been a little rough here after all. Rougher than I expected.”

Isa was taken aback; of all the comments he’d gotten so far, no one had been quite so candid, especially a stranger. Braig seemed to take it in stride, at least, and Isa was tempted to let him do all the talking. But when the man asked, “Is the proprietor in his office?” and nodded at the back door as if he intended to simply show himself in, Isa had to speak up.

“I’m sorry, but who are you?”

The man reached into the breast pocket of his jacket. “An associate. Of a risk analysis firm,” he said, offering a business card to Isa. “I believe I am expected.”

Isa accepted the card, taking note of how broad the man’s hands were. They were laden with beautiful but understated rings in silver and gold, matching his hair and eyes. Braig leaned to the side, checking the card out over Isa’s shoulder, and Isa once again tolerated this invasion of his personal space as he read the card himself.

_D.C. Consulting Firm: Risk Assessment and Management_. There was no address, just an email and phone number, and as for the name, it simply read: _Xemnas_.

“D.C. Consulting?” Isa asked, and just as he realized what it probably stood for, Xemnas clarified, “Dark City.”

Isa almost got chills. It was rare for people to suit their locations so well, as if it were the location itself that had given birth to them. Marluxia, for instance, had chosen the perfect town to set up shop: the Higanbana flowering in the heart of the Garden.

And Xemnas, with his voice alone, painted a complete picture of the city simply by uttering its name. He spoke with a glittering darkness, like wet pavement, nighttime high-rises, black ice. His voice was quiet, but not soft; heavy, but not dragging; hollow, but not empty. Slow and lyrical. A dirge.

“Pretty long drive for an assessment,” Braig remarked. “And of all nights.”

“The timing is not ideal,” Xemnas agreed, taking another sip of his drink. “But I was informed of…an incident in this establishment. Earlier this month.” He had a halting, lilting way of speaking, as if he were building suspense, only to proceed to the normal and mundane latter half of the sentence. It was like a held breath without the plunge, indefinitely tense. It put Isa on edge, and worse, it put him on edge for no reason, filling him with unresolved anxiety. “I decided it would be more productive to conduct my assessment when the establishment is at its busiest.”

“Well, you sure came at the right time, then,” Braig said, his casual tone unfaltering but sounding more out of place than ever with Xemnas. He had a leonine manner, large and powerful, but graceful. The longer he held Isa’s gaze, the more Isa felt hypnotized. It was as if he were drifting out of sync, his consciousness separating from himself, gliding to one side while his body stayed put. The club blurred in his periphery, caught in the heat wave of Xemnas’s molten gaze, and all Isa could focus on was the lightly amused, secretive non-smile on his face.

“Isa.”

Marluxia’s voice set everything back into place, even more jarring than the slow, sliding sense of unreality Isa had just experienced, and Isa’s first thought, before any reasonable response, was, _Why did you let him know my name_?

He banished that thought as quickly as it arose, along with any other irrational feelings. He followed Xemnas’s gaze to the back door and saw Marluxia approaching, as prim and proper as always.

Isa had never truly gotten used to the sight of his employer. On the surface, Marluxia was easily the most effeminate person on the Higanbana staff. His hair was pink, his face was beautiful, and he dressed in stylish pastels, meant to evoke the flowers of which he was so fond. He was a bit of a hand-talker, but his gestures were commanding rather than camp. Straight wrist, Isa figured. It gave the impression of strong hands, even when Marluxia’s were more artful. He had a slender swimmer’s build, but if one were to look a little closer, or for a little longer, the broad shoulders and solid chest would become more apparent, even beneath his trimly-cut dress shirts and vests. When he walked, he strode with purpose, not just drawing attention but holding it.

Isa wasn’t about to admit to being jealous, but there was something about Marluxia that he coveted. He was, in many ways, an ideal. The man could adorn himself in waistcoats embroidered with flowers, he could have feather-soft hair and smell like cherry blossoms every single day, and yet, beneath that seemingly delicate exterior, there was an inherent masculinity that bled through. The more Marluxia indulged in surface-level refinery, the more his innate self emerged as a counterweight, never letting him swing too far to either extreme. It was a balance he maintained effortlessly, and one which Isa, in contrast, had wasted years of his life trying to achieve.

_Jesus_, Isa thought, shaking himself off as Marluxia arrived at the bar. _Where the hell did that come from? You’re twenty-seven years old, not twelve. Get a grip._ He stood up straighter, and Marluxia gave him and Braig a cursory glance before focusing on Xemnas.

“Thank you for coming all this way,” he said. Xemnas shifted the drink to his free hand so he could shake Marluxia’s. “I know this is a little unorthodox.”

“My business is the unorthodox,” Xemnas replied, and Marluxia gave him a cool smile before stepping aside and holding his arm out to the back door, ushering the man to his office. Xemnas nodded at Isa and Braig and took his drink with him as he left. Marluxia lingered just long enough for Isa to assure him that everything was running smoothly out on the main floor, and then he followed Xemnas to the back.

Isa watched the door swing shut, and he had never wanted Braig to speak more than he did in that instant. When the bartender whistled and said, “Man, what a voice, huh? Six feet deep, I’d say,” Isa was more relieved than annoyed. Still, he gave Braig a dry look, just to keep things consistent. “What?” Braig laughed. “’Tis the season. The spooky vibe in this place is getting to me.” He started unloading the crates he’d brought from the supply room, and Isa kept it to himself that the vibe might have been getting to him, too.

After Braig finished stocking the shelves and shoving the crates under the sink, he said, “Hey, what’d I tell ya? You made out like a bandit with those tips.”

“They’re all yours,” Isa said, staring at the back door again and running his thumb along the corner of the business card.

“Well, if you insist,” Braig said, already emptying the jar into a larger container beneath the counter. “Thanks for keepin’ an eye on things.”

“No problem.” Isa finally let his gaze stray back to the rest of the club, soothing himself with a routine scan of the crowd. An unsubtle cough caught his attention, and he turned to see Braig looking at him. “…did you need something else?” Isa asked, and Braig chuckled quietly.

“Nope. I’m good.” When Isa continued to wait for an explanation, Braig pointedly added, “So you can mosey on out now. I’ve got orders to fill, and two’s a crowd back here.”

With a twinge of embarrassment, Isa finally realized just how long he’d been loitering behind the counter. He excused himself with barely a word and resolved to get his head on straight once and for all, heading back to his own spot by the front door, weaving through the crowd of masks and monsters to get there.

* * *

Per tradition, Lea and Isa returned to their apartment around four in the morning and proceeded to get drunk on the couch, catching the tail end of whatever horror movie marathon was still airing. This year, Isa was the one refilling their glasses and retrieving new bottles from the kitchen, at such an unrelenting pace that even Lea suggested _maybe_ slowing down a bit. “We are celebrating the glorious end of a god-awful month,” Isa insisted as he topped off his glass, and who was Lea to argue with that?

They slumped on the couch as the exhaustion of the night caught up with them. A few stray thoughts ran circles around Lea’s brain, and he shut them off by keeping his hands busy, idly braiding Isa’s hair. He plaited and unwound it over and over again until he ran out of styles he knew how to do, laying the loose braid over Isa’s chest to unravel in its own time. When Isa decided he finally needed to lie down, he simply reclined without warning, taking Lea down with him. Lea slid the blanket off the back of the couch, spent nearly two minutes trying to figure out how to unfold it, and eventually gave up, laying it over them as best he could.

Halloween was the only time of year when Isa really drank, and consequently, it was the only time that Lea got to hear him sing. He never pointed it out, afraid Isa would stop if he got too self-conscious. He simply lay beneath Isa as he hummed softly to himself, stopping and starting again after a few bars. Gradually, he added the lyrics, picking up “Li’l Red Riding Hood” from where Demyx and Braig had left off earlier that evening.

Lea assumed that Isa was absentmindedly singing, so he only absentmindedly listened. Isa turned onto his side, a little uncoordinated, but relaxed. He settled in, pressed between Lea and the back of the couch, and Lea finished unfolding the blanket, tucking it around Isa and lazily draping the rest over himself. He sighed and lifted his chin as Isa kissed his way up his neck, accepting that he’d probably end up falling asleep right where he was and waking up with a sore back, as was also tradition.

“_What green eyes you have—the kind of eyes that drive wolves mad_,” Isa murmured. He caught Lea’s earlobe briefly in his teeth before continuing, “_Little Red Riding Hood…_” He tried to tuck the shorter spikes behind Lea’s ear, despite knowing that they never cooperated, so he settled for nosing into Lea’s hair, his breath unusually warm from the alcohol as he whispered, “_Even bad wolves can be good…_”

For such a creepy song, it hit just the right amount of sleaziness and yearning for Lea to get an entire cascade of shivers up his spine, and while he couldn’t see Isa’s face, he could hear the grin in his voice. He curved his arm around Isa’s back and leaned down to kiss him, and Isa cupped his jaw with both hands, more than ready for it. A little too drunk for finesse, Lea kissed whichever part of Isa’s face was in front of him at any given moment, neither avoiding nor lingering on his scars. Isa snuck his hand into Lea’s back pocket, pulling him closer, and Lea worked on clumsily unbuttoning Isa’s shirt, both of them eagerly forgetting about broken bottles and emergency room visits, forgetting about evasive strangers and even more evasive employers, and welcoming a sense of normalcy and familiarity for whatever amount of nighttime remained.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if I've made it abundantly clear yet, but Xigbar and Saïx have been my all-time favorite members of Organization XIII from the very first moment I saw them.
> 
> Anyway, part four is complete! As always, thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> Part five will be on the way soon. In the meantime: Happy Halloween! I'm off to go watch The Lost Boys or something.


End file.
